Australian great Steve Waugh believes India captain Virat Kohli needs to tone down the emotion he shows during games.
Kohli came in for some criticism during the first Test against the Proteas at Newlands in Cape Town, with some believing he went a little overboard in how he celebrated the wicket of opposing captain Fat du Plessis.
While many dismissed it as Kohli’s competitiveness, Waugh said he felt the Indian skipper was ‘over the top’.
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‘I have seen him in South Africa and I feel that he was (a) little over the top. But that’s a learning thing for a captain,’ said Waugh, as quoted by NDTV.
India lost the Test series 2-1, but managed to come back in the limited overs series, and Kohli’s passion was once again on display.
‘As a captain, he is still developing and needs some time to pull in his excitement factor and emotions but that’s the way he plays,’ Waugh continued.
‘I think he just needs to get a bit aware that everyone in the side can’t play in that fashion. Someone like (Ajinkya) Rahane and (Cheteshwar) Pujara are very calm and quiet guys so he needs to just understand that some players are different.
‘At times he probably needs to tone his aggression down and at times he needs to lift it, so he needs to work it out what’s right.’
Despite that, Waugh insisted that he had immense respect for the 29-year-old India captain, who is thought by many to be the best cricketer currently in the world.
‘He is leading very well right now. He has that charisma and that X factor and so he wants all the rest of the team to follow him. He wants the team to play positively all the time and win as quickly as he can,’ said Waugh, who played 168 Tests for Australia.
‘They have got a very good win record in the last couple of years in all forms of the game. Virat has high aspirations from his team. He wants to be no.1 across all formats which is difficult to do these days.’
Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
