This has been one of the most debatable questions in the minds of cricket enthusiasts, who is better as a captain? Run machine Virat Kohli or Captain cool Mahendra Singh Dhoni? Captaincy is something that is only dependent on how the captain performs individually, but also how well he/she gets the team to work. Not all good players have formed good captains and not all good captains have been exceptional pieces of talent. For example, Brian Lara (the quadruple centurion) was never a very good captain. He individually did well (his batting average as captain in tests was 57 in 47 tests and 35 in 125 matches in ODIs), but the win percentage under his leadership in tests was 21% and 50% in ODIs, whereas a player like Hansie Cronje, who does not have a great individual record, has a win % of 74 in 199 ODIs and 54 in 53 tests.
Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni have been prolific servants of the Indian cricket team. Virat Kohli has better individual stats while captain with almost 4500 runs in 74 innings in test cricket and more than 4000 runs in 65 ODI innings and also 600 runs in 21 innings in T20s. MS has scored 6600 runs in 172 ODI innings, 3400 runs in 96 test innings and 1100 T20i runs in 62 innings. A reason that can be associated with this is that Virat bats at no. 3 while MSD bats at no. , thus Kohli gets more balls to face and time to settle while MS has to hit from the word go.
MS Dhoni has a great reputation to make bold decisions like promoting Rohit Sharma as an opener after repeated failures as a middle order bat, trusting Joginder Sharma to win him the T20 world cup or sending himself up the order during the iconic 2011 world cup final have defined his intelligence as a captain, while Virat Kohli has taken some bizarre decisions as a captain, like dropping Bhuvi and Rahane during the test series in South Africa, or dropping Pujara for the Nottingham test, which have found him not in the best of positions.
The last thing that is considered for a captain are his/her results. MS Dhoni has 110 wins under his belt in 200 ODIs (win %=55) while Kohli has 49 wins in 68 matches (win %=72). Yet they are two different types of captains. MS is instinctive and relies on the situation of the game to make his decision, whereas Virat Kohli is aggressive and likes to dominate the opposition. It is upon the audience to decide who has come out on top.
Shalv Srivastava
Class XI
Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram
