IND vs SA: "Time To Unveil Virat Kohli 3.0"- Sanjay Bangar On Former Skipper's Future

Indian skipper Virat Kohli is playing under someone else’s captaincy for the first time since 2017. He gave up on T20I captaincy after the T20 World Cup, was asked to step down as ODI captain and recently gave up on Test captaincy as well after losing the Test series against South Africa.

KL Rahul is leading the team and Virat Kohli is playing under him as a player in the first ODI vs South Africa. Sanjay Bangar, while talking to Star Sports spoke about how the former Indian skipper might feel playing under the captaincy of KL Rahul who he has a great rapport with. The former Indian batting coach said that Kohli might take some time to adapt to playing under Rahul.

“It’s not easy straightaway being a captain for a long period and then playing as a player. He is not going to be in the circle at certain point, he’ll have to man the boundary. When you have time between the ball he might wonder what he would have done, maybe the changes or what he would have said to the team during breaks or before the game. So those are things that will linger on for some amount of time, it’s not gonna go away in a jiffy,” said Bangar on Star Sports.

Citing the example of Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar,  Bangar said that Kohli might become a better batsman after giving up on captaincy. It has been over two years that he has scored his last international century for India.

Virat Kohli Can Be Damaging As A Batsman: Sanjay Bangar

“Virat the kind of phase he is in a good four-five years of cricket remain if not more. Look at the history of Indian cricket Rahul Dravid gave up captaincy. Sachin Tendulkar gave up captaincy and they continued to play for a longer period and maybe their performance also increased,” said Bangar.

“The way I look, Virat Kohli is fabulous as a leader and he did that job really well for over six years. Now it’s time to unveil Virat Kohli 3.0 because he can be as damaging a batsman with no responsibility. So I look forward to some great batting performances from him because Virat Kohli the batsman is what sets the world on fire,” the former Indian batting coach concluded saying.

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