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Star Indian batter Virat Kohli, having retired from Test cricket last year, spoke on his time as a skipper in the longest format of the game and how the lack of age gap between the players led to them sharing responsibilities and ownership better.
Virat was speaking in a teaser of the RCB Podcast posted on the team's official X handle. The 37-year-old retired from the format last year after a poor run of form, ending his career as India's fourth-highest run-getter, with 9,230 runs at an average of 46.85 and 30 centuries, and as its most successful captain, with 40 wins in 68 matches, since he first took over the reins in 2014 during the tour of Australia in the absence of an injured MS Dhoni. Speaking in the video, Virat reflected, "I, in fact, looked at the times that I have been able to play test cricket for so long and, you know, the opportunity and lead India for so long to, you know, some amazing victories and a golden era in our test journeys. You know, a bunch of young guys who always wanted to play test cricket for India having the opportunity of their lives as a young group." Virat said that the age gap between the core players like him, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja etc was not very much, and they were all in their 20s, leading to a lesser average age and them all sharing a sense of responsibility and ownership. "The most important thing was that if you look at our average age, you know, there was no hesitation between seniors and juniors. Everyone had played under the senior players a little bit before, and so many of the younger guys that came in after, we were like a group of friends. So what happened was, okay, I was leading, and the management was, you know, taking the team forward in a certain way, but the most important thing was because of the average age of the group, everyone felt like they had responsibilities and ownership," he said. "It was not like, yeah, these guys will look after the team and, you know, we do not have anything to do with it. It felt like, okay, we are young, we want to create this, you know, team for the next six, seven, eight years. What can I do to make the team better? So people started asking questions of themselves," he signed off. Virat's captaincy reign was historic beyond numbers. He led India to a historic series win in Australia back in 2018-19 and a total of seven Test wins in SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) conditions, the most by an Asian captain. His intensity, focus on fitness, aggression and roster of excellent pace bowlers helped India take their competitiveness several notches above overseas, while a strong Ashwin-Jadeja spin duo was instrumental in keeping Team India undefeated on home soil. He stepped down from the captaincy in 2022 after the tour of South Africa, later replaced by Rohit Sharma and eventually a young Shubman Gill took over the reins with 'Ro-Ko' retiring their whites before last year's England tour. (ANI)
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