There’s any denying to the fact that Virat Kohli is currently the best batsman in the world and ever since he has taken over the captaincy from MS Dhoni, he has already won the most number of Test matches as captain for India while taking
team India to number 1 position in test rankings. Besides this, Virat also became the first captain to win a Test series in Australia.
Recently, during an interaction on an Instagram chat with teammate Ravichandran Ashwin, Virat Kohli opened up about many things, from his personal and professional life. During the interaction, Virat Kohli gave credits to MS Dhoni behind him becoming the captain. He said:
“I think a large portion of me becoming captain was also to do with him (MSD) observing me for a long period of time. It just can’t happen like he goes and selectors say ‘you become captain’,”
Virat appreciated MS Dhoni for taking responsibility for him. He said:
“The guy who is there, he takes responsibility and says okay I think this is the next guy and I will tell you how he is going and then slowly that transition is formed. I think he played a big role in that and that trust you have to build over, say six seven years, it just doesn’t happen overnight,”
Further, he talked about how the transition happened when Virat Kohli would station himself at the first slip and would use MS Dhoni’s brains. He said:
“I think that is the transition that slowly happens, then with your entry in the game you start talking to the captain regularly.
He added:
“I was always in MS’s (Dhoni) ears, standing next to him, ‘yeh kar sakte ho, woh kar sakte ho (can we try these things), what do you think, he would deny a lot of things but he would discuss a lot of things as well, so he got a lot of confidence that I can do this (captain) after him,”
Virat also talked about he has always liked taking responsibilities. He said:
“I was inclined to taking responsibility. Becoming captain of India was not even in my wildest dreams, to be honest. We all started playing at a similar time, I made my Test debut before you, you (Ashwin) made it just after in the next series.
“And after that it was all about wanting to play, wanting to be in the XI regularly, wanting to put my foot down and say I didn’t play all the games but I wanted to be discussed whether this guy is good enough to play or not.”
