‘He was in a state of shock’ – Ravi Shastri on Test skipper Virat Kohli’s lows and turnarounds

Former Team India head coach Ravi Shastri said that Virat Kohli was in deep trouble after the tour of England back in 2014. The now 33-year-old Kohli had a disastrous outing as he scored only 134 runs from five matches at an average of 13.40. Quite often, the Delhi-born Kohli has spoken about the tour and how he found it tough to bail himself out of jail.

Shastri, who joined India as the team director in 2014, said that Virat was a kind of player, who would put in efforts to improve his game. The veteran reckoned that the then youngster had the potential to step into the massive shoes of MS Dhoni. Later in 2014, Kohli indeed became India’s full-time Test skipper after Dhoni retired following the Melbourne Test.

Later that year in the tour of Australia, Virat amassed quite a few runs along with Steve Smith. Shastri, whose tenure with Team India ended after the T20 World Cup 2021, lauded Virat for making a string comeback in his career after the tour of England.

He was reeling from that tour, says Ravi Shastri

“Once I came on board, my first challenge was to identify someone who could walk the talk and I found in Virat Kohli the guy with the character, game and personality to step into Dhoni’s shoes.

“Virat was reeling from that tour of England because he hardly got runs. He was in a state of shock the way things had turned out. But you could see there was still enough there to get him going. Once he was back on his feet, there would be no looking back,” Shastri said in an interview with TOI.

Shastri was also amazed by how quickly Kohli gained his confidence back and started performing on a consistent basis across formats. “I began watching him very closely. The more closely I saw him, I could see his sense of confidence returning back with each day.

“Those initial two-three months went in getting to know the team better. We began talking a lot, on various issues – batting techniques, the path forward, lot of things,” he added. While he is no longer India’s ODI and T20I skipper, Kohli remains India’s Test captain.