Former India head coach Ravi Shastri says there is no need to panic after a difficult month for Indian cricket where the national men’s team suffered bitterly painful Test and ODI series losses in South Africa.
After making a winning start to the trip with a Boxing Day Test victory in Centurion, it all went downhill at the turn of the year for the tourists. They faced heavy defeats in the following two Tests in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
The team then continued on the losing vein through the ODI leg and ended with a gut-wrenching 3-0 series whitewash to a pretty beatable South African side.
Five successive drubbings have brutally exposed India’s shortcomings and the areas they need to improve upon in the two formats. But while he also deep down recognises that, Shastri feels this is no time to raise the red flags, and it is important to give the side time and patience.
“If you lose one series, you people start criticising… You can’t win every game, there will be wins and losses. How can the standard go down suddenly? For five years, you have been number one side in the world,”
said Shastri talking to PTI at the sidelines of the ongoing Legends League Cricket in Oman, a T20 competition of retired cricketers, of which the ex India head coach is the commissioner.
The poor outings in South Africa followed not too long after India also faced a disappointing Super 12 exit at the T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE, including a comprehensive ten-wicket loss to Pakistan.
In what has been a phase of chaos in Indian cricket off the field, speculations have been rife that modern-day batting giant Virat Kohli is in a rift with the existing BCCI regime led by president Sourav Ganguly.
Kohli relinquished his T20I captaincy post at the end of the T20 World Cup and quit the Test leadership job following the Gandhi-Mandela Trophy in South Africa. In between, Kohli was sacked from the reigns in ODIs, a decision that created a massive furore.
It emerged through Kohli and chief selector Chetan Sharma’s words that the selection panel and BCCI feel there should not be two white-ball captains and thus the appointment of Rohit Sharma as the new limited-overs skipper.
But the backdrop to the T20I captaincy move offered contrasting narratives. While Kohli said his decision conveyed just prior to the T20 World Cup was taken very well by the selectors and the board, Ganguly said in an interview that he had asked the skipper to reconsider his move. A sentiment that Sharma echoed at the point of announcing the ODI squad for the South Africa series.
Contrasting views and captaincy removals have left Kohli’s relationship with the BCCI regime up for discussion and debates. But Shastri, who spent most of his six-year coaching stint with Kohli at the helm in at least one format, said his decision to quit captaincy should not be questioned.
“It’s his choice. You have to respect his decision. There is a time for everything. A lot of big players in the past have left captaincy when they felt they wanted to focus on their batting or on their cricket.
Whether it’s (Sachin) Tendulkar, (Sunil) Gavaskar or (MS) Dhoni. And, it’s Virat Kohli now,”
said the former India all-rounder.
Shastri also has a big issue with people judging Kohli’s otherwise mighty successful tenure by the absence of a major ICC trophy under his cabinet and cited the fact that there have been many greats in the past who have failed to win such a title.
