NEW DELHI: What separates Virat Kohli from his colleagues is his consistent performance in all forms of the game. His ability to adjust with different kinds of conditions and his never ending thirst for runs, make him a formidable adversary for any bowling side.
Nevertheless, there always emerges some sulky person to show the right path to young talents and, according to legendary Sunil Gavaskar, it was MS Dhoni who made Kohli an absolute great cricketer of our time.
‘When Virat Kohli started off in international cricket it was a stop-start career,” said Gavaskar on Star Sports. “It was MS Dhoni who gave him that little bit of momentum which is why he’s now become the Kohli that we see.’
Gavaskar has had a few words clash with Kohli ever since he criticized the latter for having slow strike-rate during IPL matches.
“If you have a strike-rate of 118, yes come face the first ball but then get out in the 14th or 15th over and your strike rate is 118 – if you want applause for that, then that’s a little bit different,” Gavaskar said.
Kohli also responded to this criticism by saying: ‘Not really. All these people talking about my strike-rates and playing spin well are actually just speaking through their backside. You don’t know what has happened on the field as you haven’t been in such situations yourself. But your job sitting up here is speaking about them even though you do not know what happens on the field as far as this game is concerned. So for me I would rather talk about my own assumptions day-in-day-out till whatever may happen; those who have done day-in-day-out they know what’s happening and it becomes muscle memory for me.’
According to Gavaskar, such remarks constitute direct insults to former players working as commentators.
“All these guys talk about, ‘oh we don’t care about outside noise’. Accha! Then why are you replying to any outside noise or whatever it is. We all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket. We don’t have agendas. We speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes and dislikes, we actually speak on what is happening,” Gavaskar said.