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Aaron Finch has lauded Virat Kohli’s leadership and selflessness on tough spinning pitches.
Virat Kohli retired from Tests earlier this week (Picture credit: AP)
Former Australian cricketer Aaron Finch has said that while one might say that Virat Kohli’s Test numbers weren’t great when he retired as compared to five years ago, it must be taken into account how he played for the team on spinning tracks and didn’t look to prepare belters to ensure records stayed intact.
Kohli retired from Tests as India’s most successful skipper in the red-ball format. India recorded 40 wins, suffered 17 losses and drew 11 matches in 68 Tests under his leadership.
On foreign tours, Kohli led India to 16 victories in 36 games, going past Sourav Ganguly’s previous record of 11 away Test wins and highlighting India’s growing strength in challenging overseas conditions.
“What stands out to me about Virat’s leadership is that you can look at his numbers now and say they’re not as good as they were five years ago. But he was playing on some wickets in India that were spinning hugely from day one,” Finch said while speaking on JioStar.
Finch argued that this decline was less about form and more about Kohli’s willingness to sacrifice favourable batting conditions in pursuit of Test wins.
“It was about putting your ego aside to say, ‘What’s the best thing for my team right now to win a Test against this opposition? They could have rolled out some flat wickets and said, ‘I’m going to cash in on my runs and make sure that my record stacks up with some of the all-time greats,’ but he put his ego aside and said, ‘I want what’s best for my team to win this match,” Finch added.
Kohli’s numbers in the latter half of his career didn’t match the prolific heights of his earlier years.
“Brilliant point and it sounds better when it comes from you rather than me,” former India head coach Ravi Shastri said, having been previously called biased towards Kohli due to their longstanding captain-coach association.
The ace Indian batter played alongside Finch in the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. While Kohli was expected to play the upcoming five-Test series against England, he announced a shock retirement from the format, throwing the Indian team into a massive transition phase.
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