"He likes confrontation" - When an Indian legend shared his views on the difference between MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli’s leadership

Former Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin played a lot of cricket under the captaincy of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. He started his career under Dhoni, while Kohli was India's captain during Ashwin's peak years on the field.

Having played so many matches under both of them, Ashwin once shared his thoughts on the difference between their leadership styles. In an interview with the Times of India in April 2017, Ashwin mentioned that he would take his hat off to Dhoni because of his lengthy tenure as a captain.

In Ashwin's view, the pressure of captaincy is so great that one would take voluntary retirement from it after five years only. Next, he spoke about Kohli and Dhoni's captaincy style and said:

"The first thing that comes to my mind when you say MS Dhoni as captain is maturity. Virat has just taken over from him and he is a completely different individual. He likes confrontation, he likes to be in the thick of things, he's extremely aggressive."

Ravichandran Ashwin further labeled Virat Kohli as a 'generation transforming' cricketer. He heaped praise on Kohli for his evolution as a person and a cricketer from 2015 to 2017.

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"Sometimes I feel that he's so aggressive that I get a little scared"- Ravichandran Ashwin on Virat Kohli's captaincy style

During the aforementioned interview, Ashwin also highlighted Virat Kohli's aggressive approach as a captain. The all-rounder joked that Kohli's aggression would scare him as well at times.

"Sometimes I feel that he's so aggressive that I get a little scared. I wonder whether I should remove this fielder or not (laughs). The one thing with Virat is that you will never be wondering if that fielder has been put there in an attacking position or not," Ashwin opined.

Ashwin will reunite with MS Dhoni to play for the Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2025. It will be exciting to see how Ashwin performs in the yellow jersey.