Former India opener Gautam Gambhir recently raised a few eyebrows with a bold comment on Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli. Gambhir, who brought down curtains on his illustrious career last December, said that Kohli should consider himself lucky fo retaining the Royal Challengers’ captaincy. And while Gambhir’s comment might be considered bold, Kohli’s track record as captain does not contradict it much.
Kohli took charge of the team in 2013 after the retirement of Daniel Vettori. Fast forward to 2019 and the Royal Challengers are still searching for their first IPL title. In fact, the Bangalore-based outfit is one of the most inconsistent teams in the league in the last few years. Ever since Kohli took charge, they made it to the playoffs just once when in 2016 their skipper scored nearly 1,000 runs and led the team to the final.
The performance of the team last year was equally unimpressive. Despite having the likes of Kohli, de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Quinton de Kock, Chris Woakes and other big names, they finished sixth in the eight-team competition. Recently, Kohli admitted that not luck but bad decisions were the reasons behind the team’s woes. Gambhir then criticised Kohli by saying that the latter is not a ‘tactful captain’.
“I don’t see him as a shrewd captain. I don’t see him as a tactful captain (tactician). And he hasn’t won the IPL. So ultimately, a captain is only as good as his record,” Gautam Gambhir told Star Sports.
“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,” he added.
However, former India skipper Sourav Ganguly has contradicted with Gambhir while refusing to doubt Kohli’s captaincy. The legendary skipper also backed Kohli to produce a turnaround soon.
“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 opined.
The Royal Challengers will start their campaign against defending champions Chennai Super Kings on March 23.