Kapil Dev believes that Virat could be over-burdened by captaincy in all formats

Former India skipper Kapil Dev believes that the mantle of captaincy across all three formats could be quite stressful for someone like Virat Kohli. The 28-year old has captained India in Test matches since the fall of 2014 and also has been one of the few captains to be a part of the Top 10 rankings across all formats.

Kapil Dev has also arguably been one of the most impressive captains of India in recent times with some impressive captaincy including the clinching of the World Cup in 1983. Kapil began by stating that he was a massive fan of Virat Kohli.

“I’m a great Virat fan but I fear he might feel overburdened now,” Kapil told Hindustan Times, referring to Kohli becoming ODI and T20 skipper after MS Dhoni stepped down, adding, “Virat needs a good start in the series (against England) as a batsman and in terms of results, and pray things fall in place. I don’t want him to feel the burden in limited overs because his captaincy in Tests is more important to me.”

He went on to add that someone like Virat was an emotional character and the Test captaincy had allowed him to blossom into a good skipper. “Virat is an emotional cricketer and while that has been his strength as a player, Test captaincy has allowed him to mature and handle different situations accordingly. Limited overs will be challenging and with superman-like expectations, he definitely will need time to settle down. We all need to give him that,” said Kapil.

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He, however, went on to add that he was rather unhappy with the manner in which Dhoni stood down from the captaincy position. “I wasn’t happy with the way Dhoni quit Test cricket, rather unexpectedly in the middle of an away series, this time he was dead right. To my mind, he is one of India’s best captains and he passed the baton to Virat, giving him time to look at Champions Trophy and prepare for the 2019 World Cup.”

“Nobody can doubt the talent Dhoni and Yuvraj have, but when you are 34-35, talent alone doesn’t help. So many things have to be looked at — fitness, motivation and above all runs. They will obviously have Virat’s confidence, but performances will count more than anything. If Dhoni and Yuvraj do well at No 4 and 5 in this series, India will stand a better chance of defending the Champions Trophy.”