Former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad said Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli have similarities between them as they transformed the Indian team when they took over as captains.
Prasad, who played 33 Tests and 161 One-Day Internationals for India, said Ganguly set high standards as both player and leader when he took over as captain following the 2000 match-fixing scandal that had rocked Indian cricket.
Meanwhile, Kohli took over as India’s Test captain following Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s shock retirement from red-ball cricket in 2014 midway during India’s tour of Australia before being named limited-overs captain in 2017.
“I think Sourav [Ganguly] and Virat [Kohli] are pretty much on similar lines, because Sourav also took up captaincy when there were a lot of negative things going around the team,” Prasad was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
“Second, Sourav had to really transform the team. I think it required huge leadership skills basically. And that’s what Sourav showed. He had an amazing leadership quality and he set the standard both as captain and a player. He set very high standards in both categories,” he added.
Prasad, who was part of the Indian team that reached the 1996 ODI World Cup semi-final, felt Ganguly was aggressive as Kohli but only that the Board of Control for Cricket in India president didn’t reveal his emotions as often as the current India captain.
“Virat comes across as a very, very passionate guy and comes with controlled aggression. This doesn’t mean that he goes overboard. People might feel that he goes overboard but that’s his aggression, that’s what keeps him going. That is what keeps him in the game. That is what keeps him thinking all the time. It’s easily visible, whereas Sourav’s aggression wasn’t that visible apart from a couple of incidents,” the former bowling coach of India added.