Virat Kohli is one of the most aggressive cricketers in the world. Kohli’s first few years in international cricket were full of aggression and every time he used to score a hundred there used to be a very loud celebration.
But, in the last couple of years, he has changed his style of celebration and now he celebrates more like his idol Sachin Tendulkar, and he has also stopped using abusive words. However, this doesn’t mean that he has stopped showing aggression in his natural style. He still shows his trademark ‘Delhiwala’ style on the field and fans love it.
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Many Indian cricket fans believe that Virat Kohli is very similar to Sourav Ganguly when it comes to captaincy. Both are very aggressive and don’t allow opposition to dictate things in the middle for too long.
When Sourav Ganguly took over as India’s captain, he motivated Indian cricketers to express themselves freely in the middle. And, this, many believe, is his greatest contribution to Indian cricket. It was under his leadership that Indian cricketers started playing an aggressive brand of cricket and winning Test matches overseas. Ganguly motivated his team and gave them confidence to not get intimated by any opposition. The likes of Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Ashish Nehra flourished under Ganguly’s leadership.
Similarly, Virat Kohli asks his teammates to express themselves freely and not get intimated by the situation or tactics used by the opposition. Kohli, just like Ganguly, likes giving it back to the opposition and stays in news for his bold remarks before, during and after the series.
In this post, The Cricket Lounge’s Divey Chawla lists 4 striking similarities between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly.
1) Both are very expressive
Ganguly and Kohli are very expressive when it comes to heated conversations in the middle and press conferences. Ganguly never shied away from expressing his views even if they controversial. And, we have seen Virat Kohli follow the same approach in the last couple of years. He didn’t mince his words while criticising Australian captain Steve Smith when he tried to take dressing room’s help while using DRS.
2) Both don’t back way from sledging
Ganguly was a like a tiger on the field. He never allowed any opposition cricketer to bring him down. There are numerous occasions on which Ganguly shut down sledging attempts by the opposition in his trademark ‘Dada’ style. Similarly, Virat Kohli never backs away. He likes seeing the opposition eye-to-eye and reply to them in their style.
3) Promoting young talent
Many great cricketers like Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh and others give a lot of credit to Sourav Ganguly and his captaincy style. This is because he gave them enough opportunities to cement their place in the team. Similarly, the likes of KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal and few others are getting good opportunities and flourishing under Kohli’s leadership.
4) Backing fast bowlers
Ganguly’s main bowlers, for a very long period of time, were Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. But, he never ignored fast bowlers. Javagal Srinath Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra and others were always backed by Ganguly. Similarly, Kohli also gives a lot of confidence to his fast bowlers in all three formats of the game. The likes of Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah have showed a lot of improvement under Kohli. But, his main bowlers in longest format of the game are Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
