How are Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma different as captains? Is one more instinctive and other more pro-active? An interesting perspective has come from New Zealand allrounder Corey Anderson, who has played under both.
- Advertisement -
“They’ve probably got slightly different ways of doing it. I think Virat is more on the field, he kind of sees things as they are and then goes by that. Rohit’s kind of involved in a lot of those meetings, and I think he reads the game very, very well. I think he’s sort of just very proactive around how he does things. He kind of backs himself and, because I said he’s proactive, he’ll make an opportunity and he’ll go with it. Whether it works or not, it’s a different question, he backs it and backs his bowlers to go and do it as well,” Anderson told CricketNext. “We’ve seen with the Mumbai Indians team how well he’s led that team over many, many years.”
Kohli took India to No.1 in the World Test ranking, though they would eventually lose the Test championship to New Zealand. India also failed to bring home ICC trophies in white-ball cricket.
Anderson, who played under Rohit’s captaincy longer than he worked with Kohli, also admits that the personnel that Rohit had in Mumbai Indians might have played a role in the team’s success.
- Advertisement -
Corey Anderson. (Express File)
“He’s had some very, very good players in those positions to be able to rely on as well. And I think sometimes the captaincy can come down to that as well, the personnel you’ve got. And if you’ve got bankers like they did had Hardik and they have Bumrah obviously and things like that, it makes it a little bit easier to be able to kind of go back to those guys, stick to a plan and know that they’re probably gonna deliver more odds and not.”
It also coincides with the general perception that Rohit identifies players and sticks with them instead of constant reshuffle. Perhaps he picked that up from the pre-existing culture in Mumbai Indians when he wasn’t the captain.
- Advertisement -
Kohli was captain for RCB for a long time and there was a lot of reshuffling in the team during this time. Something similar also occurred with the Indian team.
“Virat probably had a little bit of fluctuation between personnel with Bangalore and things like that. It makes it probably a little bit harder to have. It’s a consistent plan to go to as well, but I think they’re very good captains in their own,” Anderson said.
Anderson retired from international cricket at the age of 29 itself, and has said that it could be a developing theme with the rise of franchise cricket. And he sees the emergence of one-format cricketers.
- Advertisement -
“The more franchise competitions that come up, they swallow up a lot of the calendar. It makes it very difficult to try and find that time. You’ll see more and more players opt for one or the other. I just think it’s a natural progression with how much cricket’s being played and also the depth in cricket now as well. I think T20 can preserve a lot of people for a lot longer … There’s only a couple, like Jimmy Anderson’s, Stuart Broad and stuff we were still floating about and that’s very hard to probably keep bowling when you’re 40 as you can probably see with Legends League, there’s a few guys who can now bowl a couple of overs and then they’re done. So, yeah, I think you’ll see it more and more one-format players.”
