It Was About Putting Your Ego Aside: Former Australia Skipper Heaps Praises On Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli recently announced retirement from Test cricket, which shocked the entire cricketing world. Reactions and tributes poured in for India’s most successful Test skipper who has won 40 Tests for India as skipper, losing just 17 and drawing even fewer games (11). 

While most of the reactions have been around his batting, his impact and selflessness as a skipper was also being pointed out. In the same lieu, former Australia captain Aaron Finch heaped immense praise on Kohli the skipper for continuing to back his bowlers and make tracks that weren’t exactly suitable for his own batting, but benefited the team at large. 

“What really 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,” Finch told Jio Star.  

“But he was playing on some wickets in India that were spinning hugely from day one. It was about putting your own ego aside to say, 'What's the best thing for my team right now to win a Test match against this opposition?’  

“They could have rolled out some flat wickets and said, 'I'm going to cash in on my own runs and make sure that my record stacks up with some of the all-time greats,' but he put his own ego aside and said, 'I want what's best for my team to win this match,'” Finch added.

Ravi Shastri, who was India’s coach for the majority of Kohli’s captaincy, also chimed in and joked that it sounded much better when the above fact was made by Finch, rather than him as that would be brought in claims of bias. 

"Brilliant point, and it sounds better when it comes from you rather than me," Shastri added with a slight smirk. 

Overall, Kohli is on the fourth spot amongst Indians with most Test runs after Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar.