Irfan Pathan elucidates why Virat Kohli is lot alike Sourav Ganguly

Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly are two of the most successful skippers that India have ever seen. When you contemplate about it, there is not much difference between the style of captaincy between the two heavyweights.

In the early 2000s, Sourav Ganguly, as a skipper of the national side revolutionised Indian cricket. It was under his leadership, the team developed a winning attitude. Sourav Ganguly was also known as someone who would never run away from a conversation in the middle, and images of him waving his jersey at Lord’s after win over England is still a moment remembered by cricket fans.

The current Indian skipper has a similar attitude as Dada. He is always full of energy, and he never backs down from challenges. Virat Kohli exudes confidence and the oppositions have realised that speaking to him during the play only makes him a better cricketer because he rarely ever gets rattled.

But the likeness between the captaincy of the two Indian stars do not end here. Former Indian fast-bowler Irfan Pathan believes there is another huge similarity between the two captains.

“He is very similar to Sourav Ganguly as well. A guy who backs his youngsters really, really well. Virat Kohli has that aura about him, that he goes out of his way to back the youngsters,” Pathan said .

“We have seen that with Rishabh Pant, we have seen the press conferences, he goes and says, ‘No, we need to back a guy like Rishabh Pant purely on his potential’,” Pathan said.

Meantime, Sourav Ganguly, who is currently the BCCI chief in an interview revealed that he has spoken to Virat over the upcoming tour against Australia this year and told him that he expects his team to win.

India will take part in a four-match Test series starting from December this year, with the first Test to be played at Gabba in Brisbane. The last time India had gone to Australia, the Virat Kohli-led side had won the series, becoming the first Asian nation to do so. Sourav Ganguly revealed that he has told Virat that he has already set the expectations high.

“I have said that to Virat also,” Ganguly told India Today in an interview. “I said, ‘because you’re Virat Kohli, your standards are high. When you walk to play, when you walk with your team, I, watching on TV, don’t expect you to just play well against Australia. I expect you to win.”

“So for me, that is what it is. Because you have set the standards. It’s not anybody else. So you have to live up to the standards’,” Ganguly further added.

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