The India cricket team reached heights that it had never before in the 2010s. Virat Kohli is considered the man behind this golden period. Two ICC trophies in 2011 and 2013 were followed by a historic Test series victory in Australia. But above all, the fitness standards and pace bowling unit were the biggest achievements.
Kohli’s former teammate Ambati Rayudu feels that what the legendary captain did for Team India will serve them for the next 100 years. We saw Kohli reach a level with the bat that only a few have in cricket’s 148-year history. In a 3-year period, from 2016 to 2019, he scored 7 double hundreds in Test. From 2010 to 2019, Kohli scored a whopping 42 ODI hundreds.
Virat Kohli, India’s most important cricketer?
But above all, it was his fitness and the fitness culture he built. Kohli could run singles all day long. Hot and humid or cold conditions, he never got tired. After batting, he’d come out and field with the same intensity. He pushed others in the team to strive for a similar level of fitness.
“The kind of things he has done for Indian cricket, I don’t think anyone else has. And his value, many people don’t realise. It’s not just about his batting. Yes, batting is there, but fitness. Before him, players were fit, naturally fit, many of them. But because of him, Indian cricket has reached another level,” Rayudu said on the Unplugged podcast.
The former batter feels what Kohli has started will continue beyond this century. The stone he’d laid will build a foundation that will serve Team India for the next 100 years.
“Virat Kohli has given Indian cricket the next 100 years in which Indian cricket will dominate. Because what he started is extraordinary. He had the skill, but to that skill he added fitness. Once you are fit, you are always mentally sharper, and your cricketing execution improves that much more. So for Test cricket also, it is very good,” Rayudu.
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