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Not Bumrah or Rohit, Ravi Shastri Picks Best-Ever Player He’s Coached
Follow UsFormer Indian head coach Shastri also talked about the transition from MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli
Ravi Shastri’s tenure as India’s head coach was filled with moments but no trophies. During his tenure, however, India returned to No.1 on the Test rankings, after a long wait, with a dominant home run.
Not just that, Shastri also shepherded a young Indian side to two dominant series wins in Australia, a feat that was never achieved before in Indian cricket. But it wouldn’t have been possible without one certain fearless Virat Kohli, who was at the fulcrum of all these events.
Kohli took over the reign from MS Dhoni during the 2014 series, and quickly showed what he is capable of as a captain with twin centuries on his debut as India’s Test skipper in Adelaide. During the next five years, the right-hander dominated the red-ball format, with 4,492 runs, averaging a staggering 63.27, with 18 hundreds.
Shastri opened up on that transition, stating that he identified Kohli as the future of the Indian side.
“Working with him [Kohli] was great. He’s the one man I identified who can lead the team. Once I took over the job and Dhoni was finished, he did a magnificent job. His primary skills as a batter were to dominate the bowling unit and be in the face, and play hard. He always wanted to win and take the game forward,” Shastri said in a fan Q&A video posted by Sky Sports Cricket.
The former Indian coach also admitted that Kohli was the best-ever player he had coached, despite numerous big names such as Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah.
“I would say Kohli, the batsman in his prime, was unbelievable. In those five years when India were No.1 in the red-ball format, some of the innings he played in Australia, South Africa, England across the formats were unreal,” Shastri added.
If Shastri had to kick-start his career in this generation, which team would he love to be a part of?
“I would have loved to play against Stokes [Ben], he’s a world-class all-rounder. Alongside, there are so many cricketers, you look at the Australian bowling unit, there’s Cummins, Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, I could play alongside them and be the left-arm spinner.”