Virat Kohli may enjoy a win percentage of 64.64 across all formats for India, but despite his decent record as captain of the national team, he has not tasted the same success when it comes to captaining his IPL side, Royal Challengers Bangalore. In fact, under Kohli, RCB has played 110 matches, losing 55 games and winning 49. But most importantly, the number of times RCB have finished bottom-dwellers is alarming.
Since Kohli took charge of RCB in 2011, twice they’ve finished as the bottom-ranked side – in 2017 and 2019 – while finishing sixth out of eight in 2018 and second last in 2014. Aakash Chopra, Kohli’s former Delhi teammate and ex-India opener, believes the reason behind Kohli’s struggle as RCB captain is not one but many, starting with the failure to put together a formidable team.
“He [Kohli] is surely not a successful IPL captain. The team has not done well, it is actually a fact. And it is not one or two years, but many seasons. There are manifold reasons for that. First thing is that they don’t pick the correct team. If you see their squad’s strength, you can observe glaring mistakes. You can punch holes in them,” Chopra said while responding to a question on his YouTube channel.
Another reason which Chopra believes is holding the RCB back is lack of proper communication between Kohli and the management, that eventually picks players at the auction. “Second reason is that when the Indian team captain is the skipper of your franchise, you don’t stretch his bandwidth beyond a point. This is with regards to once again the squad selection. The other people need to do a very good job at the time of squad selection,” Chopra said.
