Virat Kohli‘s reign as India‘s captain from 2015 to 2022 was one of the most successful ones as an India skipper. India achieved great success in Test cricket, and also swept aside most of the bilateral white-ball series, though not winning an ICC trophy under Virat is still hurtful.
In his tenure as captain, Kohli gave his backing to plenty of players. However, there were a few whom the Delhi-born didn’t show enough trust in their talent and faith in their abilities.
Some would feel that these 3 players were treated unfairly by captain Virat Kohli:
Karun Nair
Karun Nair is India’s only second-ever Test triple centurion. He recorded this feat in his career’s third Test match – against England in Chennai. However, it is quite a shocking fact that he played only 3 more Test matches and only 4 innings in that after that – all against a strong Australian bowling unit on tough pitches in the 2017 series. Nair was dropped after that and was never picked again.
Ambati Rayudu
One of the most shocking controversies in Indian team under Kohli’s captaincy tenure was that of Ambati Rayudu‘s exclusion from the 2019 World Cup squad. Rayudu was one of the key players of Team India in ODIs leading up to the 2019 WC.
However, just one bad series for him – against Australia – where Vijay Shankar did well with the ball, saw Rayudu being dropped for ‘3-D’ Vijay Shankar. And even when Dhawan and Shankar were injured during the WC in England, the selectors sent Pant and Agarwal as replacements and not Rayudu, which led to Rayudu announcing his international retirement. Fans feel that Kohli should have forced for Rayudu’s selection in the first place.
Amit Mishra
Amit Mishra would still feel hard done by captain Virat Kohli. Mishra picked up a five-wicket haul in his last ODI match and was Man of the Series against New Zealand late in 2016.
However, when Kohli became the new white-ball captain in early 2017, Mishra was shockingly looked over for younger spinners despite his recent brilliant form. It felt that Kohli didn’t believe Mishra to be a long-term prospect. This exclusion of the in-form veteran leg-spinner, just on the basis of his age, is very baffling.
