Cricket needs Virat Kohli’s passion and aggression: Allan Border

Virat Kohli had a bittersweet Perth Test against Australia. He blasted his sixth century Down Under but India lost the Test by 146 runs to squander the advantage they had in Adelaide. He was involved in a war of words with Australia skipper Tim Paine and that received some criticism from former players like Mitchell Johnson, who termed his behavior ‘silly’. However, former Australia skipper Allan Border has justified Kohli’s aggression and said cricket needs the Indian cricket team captain’s aggression and passion in order for the game to survive. This comes after former India pacer Zaheer Khan had stressed that Kohli does not need to tone down his aggression.

Border pointed out that the aggression from Kohli stemmed from the fact that he desperately wanted to win an away series as the skipper of the side. “There's not many characters in our game at the moment. The professional era has sort of beaten that out to a certain degree. I haven't seen anyone sort of carry on so much as a captain when his side takes a wicket. It's really over the top but it's good in a way. You can see some passion about what he's trying to do. He's so keen to win away from home and really deserve that number one ranking. That's your KPIs (key performance indicators) as a captain I suppose,” Border said in Fox Cricket's podcast - The Follow-on.

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India has not won a series in countries like New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and England since 2009. Kohli’s side are aiming to become the first Indian side to win a Test series in Australia and heading into the Melbourne Test, both sides are level 1-1. Border said Kohli has the passion and the drive to succeed but he is feeling the pinch as captain.

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“To drive the team to be number one, which he has achieved, but to win away from home is one of those important things you notice as a captain. I think he's feeling that pinch. If you look at this Indian side he's probably the only one that has the character to get really animated. The rest of the Indian boys are very good cricketers but seem to me a quiet bunch and maybe Kohli feels as skipper he needs to lead from the front and really show some passion and drive. I think it just comes naturally to him,” said Border.