Assertive Virat Kohli needs influential coach to back him

It is going to be a tough call for both Kohli as well as selectors when they sit down with the new coach to pick the squads for the full tour of Sri Lanka in eight years, with three Tests, five ODIs and one Twenty20 game.

Virat Kohli has entered a phase in his cricketing life where he has started asserting himself as captain both on and off the field.

He appears to have succeeded in getting a coach of his choice whereas he is clearly in a dilemma whether to back the two senior most teammates Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh for the 2019 World Cup.

The convention is that a captain can always ask for one player of his choice and if he has to do it he may settle for Dhoni for more than one reason, going by his public defence of the wicketkeeper-batsman. Even Dhoni wouldn’t have been able to defend himself for playing his slowest ODI knock in a perfectly suited situation for him as a finisher in the fourth one-day International match against West Indies.

Winning the series against a second grade, some even called it third eleven, was never in doubt, but to make heavy weather of it, and even losing a match, was surprising. The inexplicable loss, coming on the heels of the Champions Trophy reverse, triggered cries for overhauling the squad.

His two dropped catches in the fifth ODI notwithstanding, Dhoni as of now still looks the best bet to be in the World Cup squad which is likely to carry more than one wicketkeeper. In West Indies there were three wicketkeepers in the squad, two of them, Dinesh Karthik and Rishab Pant for their batting. By then Lokesh Rahul will also be back and Sanju Thomson is among the short-listed by the national selectors.

Yuvraj’s fitness is going to be a major issue as he doesn’t or not required to bowl much these days and he is no longer a livewire on the field. He has to be in exceptionally good form with the bat to force his way into the squad, not on the immense faith captain has in his match-winning ability.