Former England spinner Monty Panesar, feels the success of the current Indian team is a reflection of head coach Ravi Shastri’s ‘fearless brand of cricket’, rather than skipper Virat Kohli’s ‘on your face kind of cricket.’
“If one analyses the performance of India in the past few months, you can see that it is more of Ravi Shastri’s team than Virat Kohli’s. At least that’s what I feel,” Monty Panesar told IndiaToday.in over the phone from the UK.
“It is Ravi Shastri who has built a self-belief in this Indian cricket team. What they achieved in Australia after the infamous ‘36’ in Adelaide is quite a miracle. They won the series even though their charismatic captain Virat Kohli didn’t play the rest of the series, and India kept losing players to injury.
“It was Shastri who got the job done for India against Australia that too in their backyard,” said Panesar.
The WTC final will be followed by a five-match Test series between England and India. There will be several individual battles, but every cricket fan will be waiting to see the fierce rivalry between Virat Kohli and James Anderson.
In 2014, Anderson had his wood on Kohli, dismissing him four times in 10 innings. Virat Kohli only managed to score 134 runs in five Tests.
However, in 2018, Virat Kohli turned the tide, and with 593 runs, he ended the series as the highest run-getter and managed to not get out to James Anderson even once in the series. Although there were a few closed shaves and dropped catches on Anderson’s bowling, Kohli did well negotiating the Englishman’s fiery spells.
“Oh, it will be a treat to watch,” says Panesar. He adds, “Two greats of the game going against each other in the toughest format of the game. The battle will be intense. believe Kohli will again have a great series and will end up the highest run-getter.”
