What did Shoaib Akhtar tell Anushka about Virat’s captaincy?
The Indian cricket team is currently preparing for the Test series against England starting on August 4 under the captaincy of Virat Kohli.
Published Date - 05:22 PM, Fri - 23 July 21
When Virat Kohli being the next captain of India was announced, Pakistani ace cricketer Shoaib Akhtar had a conversation with Kohli’s wife and actor Anushka Sharma over the subject. He said he advised her against letting the Indian cricketer take the job.
However, Virat’s smashing performance as a captain, Shoaib says, has proved all that he believed wrong.
In an interview with ‘sportskeeda’, Shoaib revealed: “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 a country like India with a population of a billion, there are around 20,000 TV sets and channels, enough to slam him.”
“In my mind, I was thinking, ‘he’s a young kid, let him score runs and play his game’,” Shoaib added.
However, the 45-year-old seemed to be glad to be proved wrong. He then credited Kohli for instilling the aggression a tearaway pacer needed. “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 said in the interview.
The Indian cricket team is currently preparing for the Test series against England starting on August 4 under the captaincy of Virat Kohli.
Now you can get handpicked stories from Telangana Today on Telegram everyday. Click the link to subscribe.
Click to follow Telangana Today Facebook page and Twitter .