India tour of England: Shoaib Akhtar claims, Virat Kohli captaining India is ‘big mistake’, recalls warning Anushka Sharma about his captaincy – Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar recalled how he warned Anushka Sharma that Virat Kohli is making mistake by being the captain of Team India. Akhtar is a big admirer of Kohli and felt that he should focus on batting and score runs freely.
Virat, who recently lead the Indian cricket team in the final of the World Test Championship, is one of the finest cricketers of the generation. The right-hand batsman is also called run-machine by his fans and have lead the Indian team to the 2019 World Cup semifinal, 2017 Champions Trophy final and the 2021 WTC final.
“I think Virat (Kohli) has done a wonderful job as a captain. I said it to Anushka Sharma in a Sony show- ‘I think Virat is making a mistake by being a captain. I knew there was a tremendous amount of pressure on him and, it would bog him down. In my mind, I was thinking, ‘he’s a young kid, let him score runs and play his game,’” Akhtar told Sportskeeda.
Akhtar is happy that he was wrong about Virat captaining the Indian team and showered praises on Kohli The Captain.
“He [Kohli] took up that challenge of being a skipper. He took it on and made sure that his replica was instilled within the fast bowlers. He wants to see his aggression in his fast bowlers. He’s not actually a Virat Kohli on the field, he is a fast bowler running in the form of an Ishant Sharma or a Bhuvneshwar Kumar or [Mohammed] Shami,” Shoaib Akhtar added.