Virat - Too early to be a captain

“Virat Kohli” – the name that has become a hot commodity for every sports magazine across the country. Well, justified, with the form he is currently in. He is going through a purple patch of his cricketing career. But the question is – “Is it the right time to make him the captain?” Many cricket fans across the country are in favour of making Virat the captain of Team India.

According to me, it’s not the right time for him to become the captain. He is too immature to lead a team filled with senior players. No doubt, he led the U-19 team to the world cup victory in the year 2008 in Malaysia. But to captain an U-19 team, and to become a captain Senior Indian team are two totally different things.

Being Indians, we all know what cricket means to us. We just want our team to win in every single match we play. A defeat is never expected here. And to fulfil the demands of 1.2 billion cricket lovers is quite a demanding thing for a cricketer who has played just 90 ODI matches and 10 test matches. Virat has not even learned to control his on-field emotions. At present, he just gets carried away with the situations as is evident from various incidents he has had on the field.

I am not saying that he cannot become the captain. He is always the future of Team India but let him grow up first, let him try to build leadership qualities to match the likes of Dada and Mahi. At this point, according to me, if he is hurried with captaincy, it’ll neither do good to the team nor himself.

The expectancy of 1 billion people to win every match will build extra pressure on him, and may even hamper his batting skills, which will an even worse possibility for the Indian team. Let’s get practical friends. MS Dhoni should remain the captain of Team India till he enjoys his post and let Virat grow up under him and learn some of the leadership qualities. Exactly how Dhoni did it under Dada and Jammy.