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Ex-IND player feels Kohli’s exit as ODI captain will augur well for Team India

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Ex-IND player feels Kohli’s exit as ODI captain will augur well for Team India

In conversations with Virat Kohli being fired as the ODI captain of the Indian team, former Indian international Atul Wassan felt that the prolific batsman himself “consciously” realized that he could not lead the team in all three forms.

Kohli was replaced by Rohit Sharma as the captain of ODI on Wednesday, completing the leadership reform of the Indian board of directors in white ball cricket. The seasoned opener Rohit was also appointed as the captain of the Indian T20 last month-he achieved positive results in the home game against New Zealand.

Wassan welcomed BCCI’s decision to appoint Rohit as the captain of ODI and T20I and emphasized the unprecedented success of the Mumbai Indian captain in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

“I don’t think it is to remove Verat. Verat himself also consciously realized that he can’t lead all three formats. He has been struggling and every player has gone through this bad period. He has set himself up. Such a high standard, even if he is in his 40s-50 years old is not counted, but he has a lot of expectations of him,” Vassan told the news agency ANI. “I said many years ago that these three formats are led by one person for any country and any team. Rohit has shown that he is an excellent leader. He won the IPL championship, but Virat No. Maybe Virat will also find his second gear and second wind, which bodes well for Indian cricket,” he added.

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Kohli led India in 95 one-day international matches and achieved 65 victories. He withdrew from the leadership role with an excellent winning rate of 70.43, which is the highest winning rate of the Indian ODI captain leading the national team in more than 10 games.

Speaking of the leadership’s stay, Vassan said that Corley enjoys the burden of the captain, and also mentioned the possibility of the Corley-Shastri duo “round the corners”.

“I think it relates to its overall view. If you see that we lost in some major tournaments and World Cups, this is also a big problem. Maybe Virat and Shastri are also pressing the authorities. So, BCCI may want to edit “So are their wings. That’s why this happened,” Vasan further said.

“The captain is a burden, but Verat enjoys it. So, he has been captain for so long, so the record can speak. Indian cricket is in a high position. He got the baton from Duny, which gave him performance, and he also A player who has achieved some good results,” he added.

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Regarding the future of Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara in the Indian team, Wassan said, “Rahane is struggling and making him a deputy captain is untenable. Rohit’s performance. Pujara and Rahane are dying.”

Complete News Source : Hindustan times

Cricket

KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill

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KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill

To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe

VVS Laxman went through the first half of his illustrious 15-and-a-half-year international career with the proverbial axe hanging over him. Despite his magical stroke-play and a well-founded reputation for rallying the lower order to bat above itself, he was forever the first name that sprang to the decision-makers’ minds when they had to drop someone to accommodate someone else. It wasn’t until the second half of his stint with the national team that he had ‘job security’, which automatically manifested itself in an array of glorious, match-turning knocks and earmarked him as one for a crisis.

KL Rahul is now dangerously close to approaching the Laxman territory, though at least in this instance, a case can be made out, perhaps, for why he often seems to be playing for his place. Almost a decade after his Test debut in Australia in December 2014, he has yet to nail down a permanent spot, a result of glaring inconsistency and repeated dalliances with injuries that have left him with a modest average of 33.87 from 53 Test appearances.

Unlike Laxman, who was thrust to the opener’s position for three years from 1997, successive team managements have worked overtime to create space for Rahul. He started off in the middle order in Melbourne against Australia, opened in the next Test in Sydney when he made a sparkling century, continued in that position for a good nine years – around the large pockets when either injuries or lack of form relegated him to the sidelines – and now seems to have found his calling in the middle order, where he was tried out in an almost last throw of the dice in South Africa last December.

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In his limited time at the No. 6 position, Rahul has been a revelation. On a spiteful surface in Centurion in his first innings back in the middle order, the classy right-hander made a marvellous 101 – Virat Kohli’s 38 was the next highest score – in India’s 245 all out. Two Tests later, against England in Hyderabad, he waltzed to 86 of the best until a hamstring strain kept him out of the last four Tests.

On his comeback last month against Bangladesh, Rahul showed why he is rated so highly, and therefore why he so frustrates when he chooses to shackle himself mentally, with uninhibited shot-making when India were pressing for a declaration (Chennai) and looking to make up for lost time with a frenetic batting approach (Kanpur) in the two Tests. Kanpur was especially mesmeric, 68 flowing off his bat in a mere 43 deliveries. It was the best of Rahul.

Axe hangs over Rahul’s head for India vs New Zealand 2nd Test

And yet here we are, two innings later, wondering whether he will, or should, feature in the playing XI in Pune, where India take on New Zealand in a must-win second Test from Thursday.

Shubman Gill, him of three centuries in his last six Tests, missed the Bengaluru defeat to the Kiwis with a stiff neck. Replacement batter Sarfaraz Khan made the most of own good fortune with a delectable 150, which makes it near impossible to drop him now that Gill is fully fit. To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula which has worked beautifully in the last few years, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe.

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One of the few men to have led India in all three formats internationally, Rahul didn’t help his cause with scores of 0 and 12 at his home ground, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. In the first innings, he was strangled down leg-side by William O’Rourke while in the second, he received a peach from the same paceman operating with the second new ball and was again caught behind. Rahul was one of 11 failures in India’s first-innings 46 and one of seven wickets to fall in 93 deliveries to the second new cherry, but failures past and the logjam created by Gill’s availability have combined to identify him as the most susceptible to the axe.

It’s a cross impossible to bear, but also impossible to ignore just because it is so heavy, so overarching. Rahul is beyond gifted and makes batting appear oh-so-simple, but his struggles to embrace sustained run-making can’t be wished away. He is the eternal team man, much like his celebrated namesake also from Karnataka – both kept wickets admirably in 50-over World Cups 21 years apart, both made attractive and impactful runs during the tournament and both tasted bitter defeat at the hands of Australia in the final – but ‘eternal team man’ can sometimes be an euphemism for the ‘most dispensable’ and Rahul can be excused for thinking that those two lines have blurred beyond repair. Of course, if he is brutally honest to himself, he will acknowledge at least to himself that he too must bear culpability for the blurring of the lines.

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