Former Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun recently opened up on the captaincy transition in Indian cricket between Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni. He stated that Kohli was happy to take the back seat and allow Dhoni to handle the “little details” in the early days of his captaincy.
The former bowling coach also threw light on how former head coach Ravi Shastri had explained the importance of having Dhoni around team members to Kohli, especially in limited-overs cricket.
In an interview with Indian Express, Arun said that the transition of captaincy between Dhoni and Kohli was “seamless”, adding that the Delhi-based batter would “often let Dhoni handle little details and prowl on the boundary in ODIs.”
“That kind of stuff can’t have happened without trust and respect. And Dhoni also saw he was given the space and responded so well.”
Kohli took over India Test captaincy from Dhoni in late 2014 and became the all-format captain in early 2017. Dhoni continued to be a member of the Indian team till the 2019 World Cup.
While speaking of Shastri, Arun heaped praise on the ex-cricketer’s tenure as head coach, calling him fearless and honest.
“During his (Shastri) tenure, there was absolutely no agenda. The decisions might have been right or wrong, that is irrelevant, but they came from the right place, purely thinking about team values and what we stood for as a team. Honesty encompasses criticism, self-introspection. It was in telling the team that ‘accept that we messed up’. It helped us evolve the team,” added Arun.
Shastri’s tenure as India coach came to an end recently. His contract with the BCCI ended after the 2021 T20 World Cup. Arun and fielding coach R Sridhar also completed their tenure at the same time. Rahul Dravid is India’s head coach now.
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