5 cricketers both MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli didn’t back

MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli will hold very special places in Indian cricket history. Not only as batsmen and wicketkeeper (in Dhoni’s case) but also as captains. We always recognize Dhoni’s contribution as skipper but Kohli’s success as captain often goes under the radar due to his brilliance with the bat.

However, both of them had different styles of captaincy. While Kohli loved pace on the ball, Dhoni loved playing around with the spinners. However, there was one thing in common that both cricketers backed players they believed in.

Moreover, there were certain players both Dhoni and Kohli didn’t really back.

Here are five such cricketers who never got a lot of backing either from Kohli or Dhoni.

1. Amit Mishra

Not a lot of people know that Amit Mishra first played in international cricket in 2003. It was in the TVS Cup that he played a couple of ODIs. He took a wicket in each game but was dropped after that series. However, it took him five years to make it back to the international stage.

He made his Test debut in Anil Kumble’s last Test series which was in October 2008. The Haryana leg-spinner was pretty impressive and picked up a fifer on debut. He was long touted as Anil Kumble’s replacement.

There was always this tossup between Pragyan Ojha and Mishra for the second spinner after Kumble’s retirement. Despite performing well, the Haryana leg-spinner played just 13 Test matches and a handful of white-ball games between 2008 and 2011 before he was finally dropped. Dhoni didn’t really back the leggie and invested in the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

Mishra was constantly in and out of the white-ball sides but he didn’t play Test cricket for four years. Under Kohli, he made a comeback and played for about a year but his form was a touch-up and down and it led to his axing. Thus, Mishra has played under both Dhoni and Kohli but none of them backed him fully.