Sunil Gavaskar reckons that the MS Dhoni played a crucial role in helping Virat Kohli become the modern-day batting great. Gavaskar says Kohli didn’t have a blazing start to his international career, terming it as ‘stop-start’ but Dhoni kept faith in his abilities.
After giving a glimpse of his talent at the junior level including captaining India to a title win at the U-19 ODI World Cup in 2007, Kohli began his international career under the captaincy of Dhoni before taking over the team’s rein across formats.
“When Virat Kohli started his career, it was a stop-start career. The fact that MS Dhoni gave him that little extra momentum is why he is the Kohli we see today, Gavaskar said on Star Sports on Friday.
Gavaskar’s latest remark comes days after he hit back at Kohli for taking a dig at the commentators for questioning his strike-rate in the middle overs and against spinners in the ongoing IPL 2024.
Kohli was criticised for his relative slow batting during the middle overs for Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
However, after a blistering fifty in a successful run-chase of 201 against Gujarat Titans, Kohli was asked about the queries over his strike-rate and the former RCB didn’t held back in his reply.
“All the people who talk about strike rates and me not playing spin well are the ones who love talking about this stuff. But for me, it’s just about winning the game for the team. And there’s a reason why you do it for 15 years – because you’ve done this day in day out. You’ve won games for your teams,” Kohli had said.
“I am not quite sure if you’ve been in that situation yourself to sit and speak about the game from a box. I don’t really think it’s the same thing. So for me, it’s just about doing my job. People can talk about their own ideas and assumptions of the game, but those who have done it day in, day out know what’s happening, and it’s kind of a muscle memory for me now,” he added.
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Taking exception to the criticism, Gavaskar had schooled not only Kohli but also broadcaster for repeatedly airing Kohli’s comments.
“If you have a strike rate of 118, you come and face the first ball, and then you 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. We’ve all played a bit of cricket, not a lot of cricket, but we speak about what we see. We don’t necessarily have any likes and dislikes. Even if we have likes or dislikes, we actually speak about what’s happening,” Gavaskar said.
“So, I would be very disappointed if Star Sports showed this once more because that would be questioning all of us commentators,” he added.
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