Virender Sehwag Advises Virat Kohli To Take A Break, Suggest A Name To Lead Against Sri Lanka

With Virat Kohli making his displeasure clear over the team not getting enough time to prepare for the challenging tour of South Africa, starting early next year,  former India opener Virender Sehwag believes the India captain should take some time off from his busy schedule and hand over the responsibility of leading the team against Sri Lanka in the limited-overs series to Rohit Sharma.

Citing MS Dhoni’s decision to take a rest during the five-game series against New Zealand in 2010 and give Gautam Gambhir the responsibility, Sehwag said India would not lose a game even if Kohli does not play against the Islanders.

“Virat Kohli should take out time and spend some time with his family. As we have seen before, when MS Dhoni took a break and gave the responsibility to Gautam Gambhir, India didn’t lose a match and this time I think that India will not lose to Sri Lanka if Kohli does not play. Rohit Sharma can take on the captaincy role in the skipper’s absence,” Sehwag told India TV.

Sehwag also backed Kohli on the issue of cramped scheduling which would not give the team much time to prepare for tough assignments like the upcoming South Africa tour. The series against Sri Lanka will end on December 24 with the ongoing Test series set to be followed by ODI and T20 series before the team jets to the African continent for a series with South Africa that runs from December 31 to February 24.

“Kohli was right to point out that the team hasn’t got enough time to prepare for the South Africa tour. They will have two practice matches but if it rains there, their three-day practice match preparation will also go for a toss. If we get there two weeks before the series, the players can familiarise themselves with the wicket and have a few practice sessions to prepare themselves. This is poor planning by the Board, if the Sri Lanka series had to happen, they could have made it shorter for Team India to prepare themselves for the Proteas tour,” Sehwag said.

Earlier this week, Kohli had expressed his anguish over the scheduling. When asked whether he had asked for bouncy tracks for the series against Sri Lanka, he had said: “Yes (I had), because unfortunately, we get only two days before we fly to South Africa after this series gets over. So, we have no choice but try to be in a game situation and think of what’s coming ahead of us.

“Had we got a month off ideally, we would have done a proper preparation in a camp sort of scenario but we have to sort of make do with what we have,” he had added.