Virat Kohli deserves to be the captain of RCB : Sourav Ganguly

Virat Kohli’s captaincy in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has become the talk of the town ever since Gautam Gambhir highlighted his poor track record with Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). The former India opener compared him with MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma to back his claim that Kohli is not a ‘tactful skipper’. While the other two have won as many as three IPL titles while at the helm, Kohli is yet to win the coveted trophy even once.

The India skipper, who is with the RCB since the inaugural season in 2008, was appointed the captain in 2013 following Daniel Vettori’s retirement. But so far, his captaincy has left a lot to be desired. In the six seasons under him, the Royal Challengers’ best result came in 2016 when they made it to the final. RCB has won 44 out of 96 matches with Kohli being at the helm.

The last season was disappointing too when they failed to make it to the playoffs. The Kohli-led side had stars like AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock, Chris Woakes, Yuzvendra Chahal, Colin de Grandhomme and Brendon McCullum. However, they finished the season at a lowly sixth after managing just 6 wins out of 14 games.

And Gambhir, who is known for making bold comments, did not shy away from criticising his former India teammate. He even said that Kohli should be grateful that the franchise has not sacked him as captain. “There are people who have won the trophy three times. MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. So I think he has a long way to go. You cannot compare him to someone like Rohit or Dhoni at this stage.

“He has been a part of RCB, and captaining RCB for the last seven to eight years, and he has been very lucky and should be thanking the franchise that they stuck with him. Because not many captains have got such a long rope where they haven’t won a tournament,” Gambhir had said while speaking to Star Sports.

Ganguly hits back

It looks like not everyone is unimpressed with Virat Kohli’s leadership skills and one of them is former India skipper Sourav Ganguly. The legendary cricketer praised Kohli the captain and said that he fully deserves to continue leading the team.

“If you talk about Virat Kohli and keeping him as a captain, just look at what he has done. What he has done with the bat in every format of the game. Absolute champion. And he deserves to be captain of RCB for whatever period of time. I am sure he will turn it around,” Ganguly was quoted as saying by Times Now.

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