India Vs England: Sunil Gavaskar questions Virat Kohli's captaincy after series defeat

New Delhi, Sep 4: Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has questioned the leadership skills of current India captain Virat Kohli following his team's second successive overseas Test series defeat. Indians were outclassed by England in the fourth Test at Trent Bridge to go 1-3 down in the five-match rubber.

What is making it impossible to digest is the fact that before the start of the series, India were considered favourites as the team under Kohli was playing an aggressive brand of cricket. They had all their boxes checked for they had the batsmen, the bowlers and a charismatic captain in their ranks but everything fell apart from the very first game and the Indians couldn't catch up.

Reasons for India's defeat

However, it was India's batting and skipper Kohli's strategies which were a major let down in the series and Gavaskar has criticised the Indian skipper for the same. But the Indians faltered terribly in the batting department and never looked in the zone from the start of the series.

Criticising Kohli's decision to play five recognised batsmen despite the team was performing terribly in this department.

"When you go in with five batsmen then you are bound to be in such a situation where you rely so much only on one player, Virat Kohli to get you the big hundreds. He can't do it every time, he's human.

"To expect that the lower order (to save India after the top-order collapse) after that Kohli-Rahane partnership was broken, to get even another 60-70 runs was too much," Gavaskar told India Today in an exclusive after the game fourth Test.

Gavaskar further added after the fourth Test match that Kohli is not being able to live up the expectations as a captain because the team is headed nowhere as far as winning abroad is concerned.

"Everybody would be disappointed looking at the result because when Virat Kohli took over as captain, it seemed like the team would head into a new direction under him. The team looked hungry to win and seemed more hopeful of doing well under Kohli. Everyone thought that he will bring in a lot more josh, a lot more energy into the team. So quite naturally, there will be questions asked about his captaincy.

"Everybody knew that the three toughest series for India was going to be in South Africa, England, and the forthcoming Australia tour. Before this, all that India played were more like practice tours in Sri Lanka and West Indies.

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Gavaskar stressed that Kohli, the batsman, fared in England as the latter has been the leading run-getter from both the sides in the series but not Kohli, the captain.

"Even the way in which India came back to beat Australia in the Test series last year after losing the first match, that gave us the impression that India wouldn't back down to any challenge under captain Kohli. It seemed India would always play with their heads held high. But the captain is only as good as his team. As a batsman, Kohli has lived up to the expectations and even more. He has done everything possible as a batsman.

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"If only the other batsmen could have played like him. If any other batsman could have scored over 400-500 runs then India wouldn't have lost Test series in South Africa and in England. This is like a learning curve for Kohli at the moment. Fans are bound to be disappointed as the expectations were quite high with this team. Looking at how they performed before this at home, in West Indies and in Sri Lanka, everybody were hoping to see history being made on foreign soil," Gavaskar added further.

The veteran commentator said people had a lot of hopes from the aggressive young captain who took over from a cool and composed MS Dhoni.

"Yes, when Virat took over the captaincy, everybody thought that it will be a completely different way because you had MSD (MS Dhoni) who was cool, calm and collected and here was somebody who was very passionate. Not that being calm, cool and collected means that you are not passionate about winning but here was a person who had a completely different approach and outlook to the game," Gavaskar went on to add.

However, Gavaskar refused to put any blame India head coach Ravi Shastri for the frequent shortcomings on overseas tours and stressed that the problem lies with the players.

"Just like the captain, a coach is only as good as his team. If the team is not able to raise its level on the field, whatever you might tell them in the changing room or off the field in terms of motivation, won't help. You can't blame one person for it. Questions need to be asked of those persons, those individuals who are not able to raise the level of their game rather than a coach.

"The coaches are doing their best, they are working very hard. They can't play for them from the change room. They can only hope that what they have told the players is something that they will implement. If the players don't understand then I don't think that the coaching staff is to be blamed," Gavaskar signed off.