Nick Knight believes Virat Kohli will look forward to returning as the Indian Test skipper against England. Praising Virat Kohli for transforming Team India, the former English batsman further feels the Indian captain would relish the chance to prove critics wrong in the upcoming series against England.
With Ajinkya Rahane masterminding the series win in Australia in Virat Kohli’s absence, several former players have suggested that the former should replace Virat Kohli as the captain of the Indian Test team.
Nick Knight Backed Virat Kohli To Silence Critics
Discussing Virat Kohli’s captaincy on YouTube channel ‘Cricket Fables’, Nick Knight backed the Indian skipper to silence his critics against England.
“Virat Kohli coming back into the side, and a change of captaincy. I think what he’s done for the side has been immense. The fighting spirit, the character that’s been brought into the team unit. But he’ll come back and he’ll be desperate to make his own point with the bat and the captaincy as well,” Nick Knight said.
The pressure will be on Virat Kohli to help Team India reach the ICC World Test Championship final though. In order to do so, the home team need to win the four-match Test series by at least 2-1 or a better margin.
Virat Kohli’s record against England has been sublime since the disastrous show in 2014. The right-handed batsman, who averages 70.25 against England at home, has three centuries to his name in nine Tests.
Nick Knight Warns Virat Kohli Led India Against Complacency
“That day in Chennai, if you’re not quite on it and your mind isn’t quite there and if you’re still thinking about the open-top bus, and that brilliant last day at the Gabba, England are a good side and they are going to get ahead of the game. So I think that’s the challenge for India. If they’re even slightly reliving what happened a week or two ago, on that first day in Chennai, [it’s] England’s best chance,” Nick Knight said.
The Indian team received a grand welcome after returning from the successful series in Australia where the team won T20I and Test series, and Nick Knight admitted that he was in awe of the reception the players got.
“After such an amazing high, and I saw all that reaction, I turned on the TV and saw the reception, homecoming, open-top buses, fans and crowds out there and rightly so,” Knight added.
Virat Kohli would be also be hoping to get back to his big-scoring ways after failing to score a century in the truncated 2020 cricket calendar. The first of the four-match India-England Test series will start in Chennai from Friday 5th February.
India captain Virat Kohli, pacer Ishant Sharma, middle-order batsman Hardik Pandya and left-arm spinner Axar Patel have been included in India’s squad for the first two Tests against England. While Virat Kohli played only 1 Test against Australia before returning home on paternity leave as Ajinkya Rahane took over the captaincy and under him, India won Tests at Melbourne and Brisbane. Ajinkya Rahane led from the front and scored a ton in Melbourne.
Stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane was the guiding light for the youngsters like Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Siraj and T Natarajan who stepped up in the absence of senior players in Australia.