Captaincy made Virat Kohli more responsible, says Sunil Gavaskar

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Captaincy made Virat Kohli more responsible, says Sunil Gavaskar​

India, coming off a series of losses in New Zealand and South Africa, made amends for their loss to this year's hosts Bangladesh in the 2012 edition of the Asia Cup, as captain Virat Kohli slammed his 19th century in just 124 ODIs leading India to a comfortable six-wicket win over the hosts on Wednesday.

Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar has rated stand-in skipper Virat Kohli's performance as captain in Wednesday's crushing six-wicket win over Bangladesh in the Asia Cup as a mature one, and said that the onus of captaincy made the player more responsible in his batting. India, coming off a series of losses in New Zealand and South Africa, made amends for their loss to this year's hosts Bangladesh in the 2012 edition of the Asia Cup, as captain Virat Kohli slammed his 19th century in just 124 ODIs.


Gavaskar, who was commentating on the match, was very pleased with Kohli's performance and said just about everything the captain did against Bangladesh was perfect. "Virat Kohli has taken the captaincy role like a duck takes to water. He has shown a lot of maturity. Apart from the shot that got him out, he was perfect. Captaincy made his batting a lot more responsible," Gavaskar told NDTV in an exclusive chat.

"Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid had similar patches to the form Virat Kohli is showing right now. He is leading India to many fine wins," he added.
Bangladesh's top order made an encouraging start after India won the toss and elected to field first, and even without veteran players like Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan, they managed to trouble India's bowlers putting up a respectable first innings score of 279.

However, Gavaskar said that compared to their performance in South Africa, the Indian bowlers stuck to their task well. "The bowlers did better than they did in South Africa by at least restricting Bangladesh to less than 300," he said.

India's first game in the Asia Cup this year, however, was also marred by an incident where pacer Varun Aaron looked to have deliberately bowled a 140 kmph beamer to Bangladesh batsman Mushfiqur Rahim, that felled him and made the umpire send the bowler out of the attack for the match. "I think Varun Aaron faces suspension. I've seen bowlers resorting to yorkers but a beamer is really not a good delivery to bowl," said the Indian cricket legend.

However, Gavaskar once again saw positives in India's batting and said that it was always one of their strong points. "The batting will overcome whatever the bowling is not able to achieve on these surfaces and this is the reason why I think India can go all the way," he said.

The former Test captain had said ahead of India's match against Bangladesh that stand-in skipper Kohli would be under pressure to produce good results in the Asia Cup. He also said senior player and permanent captain MS Dhoni will be sorely missed during the course of the five-nation tournament.


Asia Cup: Captaincy made Virat Kohli more responsible, says Sunil Gavaskar | Asia Cup, 2014 - News | NDTVSports.com