Re: Virat Kohli.....
Ganguly:183 in 1999. Captain:2000 Dhoni:183 in 2005. Captain: 2007 Kohli:183 in 2012. Captain: Very Soon?
Kohli has so much fire in him ... we used to have players with his temperament...
also India made 183 in 83 world cup final :)
Re: Virat Kohli.....
Virat did not have immediate success but he was NOT discarded by the selectors. Unlike our Umar Akmal, Usman Salahuddins, Asad Shafiq amongst numerous others.
He is a superb batsmen. 11 hundreds in 85 matches is just phenomenal. His innings today was sublime but his innings against SL was all the more special because of the target achieved within a stipulated time.
For some reason, Indian selectors tend to have more faith in batsmen while our selectors show more faith in bowlers.
Re: Virat Kohli.....
Virat did not have immediate success but he was NOT discarded by the selectors. Unlike our Umar Akmal, Usman Salahuddins, Asad Shafiq amongst numerous others.
May be you are right, may be Umar Akmal will start hitting hundreds after 200 ODIs, he needs to be persisted with.
sarcasm aside, our own players start to think themselves of Lara, Ponting or Bradman the moment they hit a century in first few games. Look at Umar, his first century came in 3rd ODI, but after that nothing more, people blame Misbah, Younis for playing a good knock to stay in the team but that is exactly what Umar has been doing, he will cross 50s and then throw it away. Anyways, the thread is about Kohli, he is a great asset for the Indian team. He is in class of his own. He is not Tendulkar, he is not Dravid, he is not Ganguly, he is Kohli!
Re: Virat Kohli.....
I've been following Virat since 2009-2010.. he was always a great potential.. very well rounded batsman with the great ability to get aggressive without too risky. He was the India U-19 captain when India won the U-19 WC.
He has always performed well internationally (as stats would confirm) but was fighting with Raina and Rohit 2 years ago to get chances. Injuries to other players gave him enough chances to shine and by 2011 he became regular. When Sehwag Sachin Gauti Yuvraj everyone was fit in the WC, he was fighting with Raina for a spot. Raina had become a regular much before Virat did but Dhoni and co. often persisted with Virat since he is a more well rounded batsman compared to Raina. As you guys might know Virat scored the most ODI runs in 2011 (global record, not just indian players). So the selectors really havent had to persist with his failures too much.
Rohit is another story. Great potential and many sparks of brilliance but has never been consistent enough. However the selectors have been and are still persisting with him, we may see him finally shine and join Kohli and Raina as part of the next generation of Indian greats.
Virat's temperament and aggressive body language often resulted in criticism when he came to the scene. But he was only 21-22 and very successful for his age so I say give him a break. He's only 23 now and has already admitted that he should try to keep his cool a bit more and that he's working on it. But the fire in him is definitely a +, I find him to be similar to Gambhir in that sense.