Jonty Rhodes feels there can be many leaders in Indian team; no need to put pressure only on Virat Kohli

The Indian team will shortly set off on the ICC World Cup campaign in England and Wales and are considered to be one of the favourites to win the trophy along with the hosts. The Virat Kohli led team has been performing extremely well in the limited-overs format and is ranked second in the ICC ODI team rankings.

The team has a host of experience with the likes of MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Virat Kohli himself, Shikhar Dhawan in the batting department and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Mohammed Shami, along with Jasprit Bumrah in the bowling department leading the way. The talent of Hardik Pandya, Vijay Shankar and spin twins Kuldeep and Chahal cannot be discounted as well, as India pose a stiff challenge to all sorts of oppositions.

Based on the team combination and the presence of other senior players former South African cricketer Jonty Rhodes thinks there is no need to put the onus of leadership solely on Virat Kohli. He is pretty certain that there is space for multiple leaders in the team.

For Jonty Rhodes, a leader has to lead from the front 

“It’s important as a leader that you have to lead by example. But the interesting thing is you don’t always have to lead from the front,” Jonty Rhodes was quoted as saying by Timesnownews.com. Being one of the fittest cricketers of his time, Rhodes is also impressed with the Indian team’s focus on their fitness. The likes of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli are leading the way there as well and it has reflected on the whole team.

“Dhoni’s example was of setting incredible standards on fitness and control mindset point of view. So there are different styles of leadership. Kohli’s style is to take things by the scruff of the neck and he likes to impose his stamp on the game,” the South African great added.

He also mentioned that when on comparing the winning rate of the two captains – Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, Kohli has a stellar record, but it all comes down to which captain inspired his players more to give more than 100% on and off the field. Dhoni, despite having stepped down as captain in 2016, still holds the decision-making powers in the team and helps Kohli by setting fields and providing the bowlers with some valuable inputs.

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