The former cricketer-turned broadcaster, Aakash Chopra, has expressed his dismay at Indian captain Virat Kohli’s unlucky correspondence with tosses.
Speaking in a video on his YouTube channel on Friday, Aakash Chopra observed how Virat Kohli’s toss-winning percentage of just around 40 across formats is the worst in international cricket in the last five decades.
Aakash Chopra: Virat Kohli Has The Worst Record Of Winning Toss In The Last 50 Years Or So
He also spoke about how soon-to-be head coach Rahul Dravid still holds the best toss record in the world and how current team mentor MS Dhoni falls between Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid.
Aakash Chopra said: “What about Kohli and tosses? If you see, he has captained India in 8 T20Is this year and won just one toss. If you look at his career, then in the win and loss toss percentage for players who have captained in more than 100 games (across formats), Kohli has the worst record in the last 50 years.
“He’s won the toss in about 40% of matches. And the best is Rahul Dravid’s. His was nearly 58-60%. Dhoni is also around 47-48. And Kohli is right around the bottom which means luck doesn’t support him.”
Virat Kohli, who turns 33 today, has won the toss only once in his last 14 matches. His rotten luck with the coin has also hurt India in the T20 World Cup. On chase-favouring Dubai wickets, India had to bat first against both Pakistan and New Zealand, which resulted in heavy losses. India lost by 10 wickets against arch-rivals Pakistan and 8 wickets to the Kiwis.
The skipper lost the toss against Afghanistan, too, but it didn’t matter in the end as India went on to win by 66 runs. Virat Kohli has won only 18 tosses in T20Is out of 48 matches he captained at 37.5%. India needs to win their remaining two encounters against Scotland and Namibia and hope for other results to go their way to qualify for the knockout stages.
Aakash Chopra Suggests India Bring In Rahul Chahar Instead Of Shardul Thakur In The Scotland clash
Coming to tonight’s match against Scotland, Aakash Chopra suggested a change to the Indian playing XI. He argued that Shardul Thakur – who hasn’t picked up a wicket in the last two games – hasn’t looked ‘spicy’ enough, adding that considering Scotland’s spin weakness, leg-spinner Rahul Chahar would be a better choice.
Shardul Thakur conceded 31 runs in 3 overs against Afghanistan at an economic rate of 10.3, while against New Zealand conceded 17 runs in 1.3 overs. He went wicketless in both matches.
Aakash Chopra added: “I am seeing one change and why is that? Because Hardik has started bowling now and we have seen Scotland struggle against spin before. So play another spinner. In the two matches he has bowled, Shardul Thakur hasn’t looked spicy enough. I feel that you can take 2-3 overs from Hardik plus you have two fast bowlers and you can get three spinners… I am going with Rahul Chahar.”
Rahul Chahar has played only 1 ODI and 5 T20Is and has picked 3 and 7 wickets, respectively. He averages an excellent 18 in ODIs and 19.57 in T20Is. The match between India and Scotland will kickstart at 7:30 PM IST in Dubai, with the toss at 7:00 PM IST.