Virat Kohli was handed India's white-ball captaincy in 2017, while he was India's Test captain since 2014. However, ex-India fielding coach R Sridhar has revealed that he was desperate to become the Indian leader in 2016.
Former Indian skipper and current top-order batter Virat Kohli stepped down as India's all-format skipper in 2021 and has since been replaced by Rohit Sharma (Tests and ODIs) and Hardik Pandya (T20Is). It must be noted that it was nearly a decade ago, in 2014, that Kohli took over the captaincy reins for the first time from the legendary former leader MS Dhoni in Tests before taking over the white-ball duties from the same man three years later. However, as per former Indian fielding coach R Sridhar, Kohli was desperate to become the Men in Blue's all-format captain in 2016.
In his new book 'Coaching Beyond- My days with the Indian cricket team', authored by R Kaushik, Sridhar disclosed, "There was a time in 2016 when Virat was very eager to be the captain of the white-ball team too. He said a few things that showed he was looking for the captaincy."
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However, Sridhar also publicised that Shastri intervened and asked Kohli to wait for Dhoni to do it himself. "One evening, Ravi called him and said, 'Look, Virat, MS gave it to you in red-ball cricket. You have to respect him. He will also give it to you in limited-overs cricket when the time is right," he stated, reports NDTV.
"Unless you respect him now, tomorrow, when you are the captain, you won't get respect from your team. Respect him now, irrespective of what is going on. It will come to you. You don't have to run behind it'," added Sridhar. After handing Kohli the leadership duties, Dhoni also played under him for a few years before retiring from international cricket in 2020.