Legendary Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar feels that Virat Kohli is ready to take up the captaincy job from incumbent Mahendra Singh Dhoni after the series loss against England, says a report in The Times of India.
"Till the fourth day of this Test I said there is no alternative to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, but now that Virat (Kohli) has come up with a 100 under trying circumstances I think he has discovered a good part about himself. I think he is ready to take on the mantle," he said.
"I think this is something to be looked at in a positive manner because that's where the future is," he added.
He criticized Dhoni for his ordinary and unaggressive captaincy in this series, “If India were looking for a win they should have shown the intent by declaring at the overnight score. England batted exceedingly well but our bowlers were ineffective and our batters didn't do as much as they were expected to do. It was a team failure," he said.
"You don't put a forward short-leg and a silly point to just get wickets. You also put them to pressurise the batsmen and get his wicket somwehere else. When you crowd a batsmen with fielders in his peripheral vision pressure automatically come on him and that's what he (Dhoni) didn't do," he added.
Gavaskar also said that Sachin Tendulkar should make a decision on his career as he felt the senior batsman was no longer enjoying his time on the field.
"The important thing is how much you are enjoying the game. If you are not enjoying the game, enjoying to be on the field and doing things other than your speciality I feel that's the time to move on. May be that's happening to him (Tendulkar) and may be he will know that the time is right to go," Gavaskar said.
Meanwhile, the Mid Day reports that former chief selector called for Dhoni’s removal as Test captain saying he was no more effective as the leader of the Indian squad.
“Dhoni's become stale and doesn't know what to do when things go out of the way. He shouldn't be the Test captain anymore. Had I been the chairman of selectors, I would have picked Dhoni as a wicket-keeper batsman but it is time to look beyond him as a Test captain," Srikkanth said.
"I will pick Dhoni as a keeper/batsman because his contribution has to be considered. I think he will be better off without captaincy and add more value to the Test team," he added.
