Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has heaped praises on skipper Virat Kohli, saying that the latter is a boss when it comes to the success achieved by the national side in the recent past and improved fitness in the team.
When quizzed about the changing dynamics of coach and captain in world cricket, Shastri said that he has always believed that Kohli is a ‘boss’ whose role is to lead from the front while he should be responsible for taking the burden off the skipper.
“The captain is the boss, I always believe that.The job of the coaching staff is to prepare the guys in the best possible way to get out there and play positive, brave, fearless cricket,” the International Cricket Council (ICC) quoted Shastri as saying in an interview to the Sky Sports Podcast.
“The captain leads from the front. Yes, we are there to take off the burden – he’s not going to each player and talk to them, that’s my job; if you’ve got to pull someone up – but you leave him to do his job in the middle. The captain sets the tone and is encouraged to set the tone. In the middle, he controls the show. No coach in the world can do that,” he added.
Shastri did not stop there and further went on to laud Kohli for his role in improving fitness and fielding standards of the Team India.
“When you talk about fitness, the leadership comes from the top and it came from Virat.He is not a guy to mess around. He woke up one morning and said ‘if I want to play this game I want to be the fittest player in the world and compete against the best in all conditions’ and he let his body go through one hell of a lot,” Shastri said.
“It was not just the training but the sacrifices he made with his diet, the way he looked at life. I could see that change happening all the time … When he sets those standards, it rubs off on others,” the Indian head coach concluded.
Notably, the partnership of Kohli and Shastri saw India grab the top spot in the ICC Test rankings besides also making the side one of the top ODI teams in the world.
It was under the duo’s mentorship that India clinched their first Test series win over Australia Down Under in 2018.
Shastri’s comments came at a time when all the cricketing activities across the globe are at halt and India is observing a 21-day lockdown to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Source: Zee News