3 Players MS Dhoni didn’t back but Virat Kohli did
There are certain players who enjoy the confidence of certain captains.
3 KL Rahul
KL Rahul made it to the Indian team on the back of some consistent domestic performances. He played the Under19 World Cup in 2010 and from then on, he started churning out runs for Karnataka in domestic cricket. Despite scoring heavily, Rahul never made it to the Indian team in his initial 3-4 years.
He got his chance during India’s tour to Australia in 2014-15. He made his debut in the third Test in Melbourne which eventually turned out to be MS Dhoni’s last. Rahul did have a horror debut but bounced back to score a century in the next Test in Sydney. Since then, he has been a regular member of the Indian Test team. Injuries have played a part but he’s been thoroughly backed by Kohli.
Despite Rahul’s inconsistency and failures in Test cricket in the recent past, he has continued to enjoy Kohli’s confidence and held his spot. Moreover, though he hasn’t got a long run in white-ball cricket, Kohli has tried to fit him in on multiple occasions. In T20Is, Rahul has batted at 3 on multiple occasions and in ODI cricket, he has also been tried at No. 4 on a couple of instances. Moreover, Rahul barely played under MS Dhoni across all formats.
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