Virat Kohli and his men show glimpses of the Indian team under Sourav Ganguly, says Michael Clarke

Team India has been massively dominant in their display in the recent times under the captaincy of Virat Kohli. The 9-0 whitewash of the Sri Lankans, across all formats, not only highlights the colossal strength of the team but gives us a clear idea of the team’s hunger to win. While Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy style was described by an icy-cool attitude, Virat Kohli reminds us of the Bengal Tiger Sourav Ganguly who did not prefer to play on the backfoot.

There is a lot of similarity between the ruthless and merciless attitude that Ganguly possessed and Virat now has. Pointing out the same, former Australian skipper Michael Clarke says that the aggressive approach in Kohli and his men have a lot to do with Sourav Ganguly’s immense contribution to Indian cricket.

What Clarke said:

“I think there are similarities in this Indian team and Australian units over the years. To be honest, I must say that Sourav Ganguly deserves a lot of credit for the environment he created. He never took a backseat and that has transpired on. Dhoni, Kumble, Kohli have all done it their own way. Led by an aggressive skipper they are not afraid to lose. But credit must go to Sourav,” Clarke said.

The Indian team always lacked that self-confidence and the attitude that was required to win overseas in the 1990’s. the team was not considered among the very best in the world and were underdogs compared to the might of the Aussies and the South Africans. Sourav Ganguly arrived in the scenario like a messiah and changed the scene completely after taking up the captaincy. Ganguly installed the attitude of a hungry tiger in his team which gave birth to a new fighting spirit in the team. A captain who has always preferred to be in the driver’s seat, Sourav Ganguly and his team gave the Australians a run for their money.

It is important to a Steve Waugh quote here which goes like “you know what the game is on when Sourav Ganguly is the captain”.

Michael Clarke mentioned that Virat Kohli’s failure with the bat in the Test series against Australia earlier this year does not count in this series.  “At the end of the day it comes to who wins. Doesn’t matter how many runs you score,” he clarified.

Clarke pointed out that Kohli is better than his counterpart Steve Smith in ODI’s but Smith edges past the Indian in the Test format. Clarke rated Kohli higher than Smith at the moment as far as captaincy is concerned.

“Kohli is a better ODI batsman just because Smith is better in the longer format. Captaincy wise, both are improving. At the moment I would put Kohli on top in the captaincy battle as his team is winning,” he said.

Speaking about Hardik Pandya Clarke said “hardik has a huge advantage of having Dhoni in the set-up. It is a big boost when you have someone with such experience in the line-up and helping out the youngster,”.

However, Michael Clarke signed off predicting a series win for Australia. “3-2 to the Aussies,” he smiled.