5 players who could prosper under Virat Kohli's leadership

Indian cricket ushered in a new era on Sunday, when the Virat Kohli-era began after MS Dhoni resigned from captaincy at the start of the year. It promises to be an exciting phase in Indian cricket with several new players waiting on the horizon looking to become stars in their own right:

We look at 5 young playrs who could blossom under Kohli:

5.Kuldeep Yadav

A prodigious talent, who has not yet the international scene on fire, Kuldeep Yadav could well be the man, to who Kohli could turn to in the future and he too may well have found a leader who would give him the luxury to express himself.

The 21-year-old chinaman, who first burst onto the scene during the 2014 Under-19 World Cup in the UAE, gave a glimpse of his potential during the first Warm Up Match against England last week, where playing for India A, he picked up a five-wicket haul and although the effort went in vain, it gave the Indian cricketing fraternity signs of what one could expect from him in the future.

4.Jayant Yadav

The Haryana cricketer has got off a great start in his international career, having made his debut only three months back in the limited-overs series against New Zealand. Yadav played in the fifth and final ODI against the Blackcaps, but showed that he belonged to the international stage in the Test series against England, where he made extremely valuable contributions with both bat and ball, thereby adding more strength to the Indian lower-order.

Yadav’s emergence serves as a great positive for Indian cricket and in the Kohli-era, we could him blossom into a fine spin bowling all-rounder, alongside Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin.

3.Hardik Pandya

If there was one kind of player, which MS Dhoni desperately sought during his tenure as India captain, it was a seam bowling all-rounder. In his final year of captaincy, he got someone who could be groomed into a useful seam bowling all-rounder.

Hardik Pandya was picked into the Indian side for the T20I leg of their tour of Australia and with the passing of every series, he provided more and more evidence of someone who could turn into a really useful customer to have in the side.

Pandya has been handed the new ball since the New Zealand series and it will be interesting to see how he fares under Kohli.

2.Karun Nair

The right-hander may not be a certainty yet in the Indian team, but given time he could be someone who could become a regular member of the Indian batting line-up. The Karnataka batsman has already become a well-known personality within the cricketing circles, for his mammoth 303 not out against England in Chennai.

The next goal for the right-hander will be to grab every opportunity that comes his way in Test cricket and he will also look to build on his limited-overs career, which has not seen any substantial performance yet, which would make the observers call him an all format player.

1.KL Rahul

The Karnataka right-hander who has elevated his game in the past 12 months, will perhaps the most beneficiary of Kohli’s leadership. It has already been that the latter has a lot of faith in the former’s abilities, the best example being when he was taken out midway through a Ranji Trophy match in Vizianagaram for a Test match against England in Vizag after the selectors had seen enough to indicate he was fully fit.

Rahul will hope that he remains injury fit and if he can do that then he surely has a great chance to excel under Kohli in all formats.