Virat Kohli, who was removed as ODI captain and resigned as Test and T20 skipper, has said that he “doesn’t need to be a captain to be a leader” and has a role as a batsman to “make the team win more’ and will “take pride in that”. He also talked about how he strived for a cultural change in the team and the need for it to start at the top “as everything, then, trickles down”.
The last couple of months have been turbulent in Indian cricket, right from the moment Kohli chose to resign from T20 captaincy. When he was removed as ODI captain, he, the selectors and the board made a few insinuations about the communication, and eventually, it ended in his resignation from the Test captaincy after the series in South Africa.
Away from the heat of it all, Kohli has chosen a podcast with Digit, a company in which he has invested in the past and now is the brand ambassador, to air his views on matters of captaincy and the cultural changes he sought to bring in the team during his time.
“Everything has a tenure and time period,” he replied to a question about giving up captaincy. “You obviously have to be aware of that. People might say ‘what has this guy done?’ but you know that when you think of moving forward and achieving more, you feel like you have done your job.
“Now as a batsman, you may have more things to contribute to the team. You can make the team win more. So, take pride in that. You don’t need to be a captain to be a leader. As simple as that,” he said.
Kohli also gave the example of how MS Dhoni handed the captaincy to him but played on. “When MS Dhoni was in the team, it was not like that he was not a leader. He was still the guy we were going to constantly to get inputs… but for him to understand that yes, it is natural progression and a natural time for me to take over and take Indian cricket forward to a level that I wanted to and as long as I feel that I have done that job without having materialistic goals, that has a longer lasting effect. Taking the decision to move on is also part of leadership to understand the right time to do it. To understand that, maybe the environment needs a different direction. Obviously, the same culture but a different set of ideas to boost people in a different way and contribute in a different manner.”
Kohli talked about how he will continue to be his own leader. “One has to embrace all kinds of roles and responsibilities. I have played under MS as a player and I have been the captain of the team for a long time. My mindset has been the same. I always thought like a captain even when I was a player. I want to make the team win. I have to be my own leader,” he said.
Cultural change is one of the traits attributed to Kohli’s captaincy. In Dhoni’s time as captain, India’s Test record was mediocre overseas. A question popped up in the podcast about his views on the business maxim that “culture trumps strategy”.
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