Former Indian team fielding coach R. Sridhar has mentioned that Virat Kohli tried hard to become the captain of the ODI and T20 teams after taking over as the captain of the Test team.
R. Sridhar was the fielding coach of the Indian team from 2014 to 2021. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli were the former captains of the Indian team during his coaching period. In this situation, R. Sreeder mentioned in his autobiography that after Virat Kohli became the Test captain, he immediately wanted to audition for ODI and T20 matches.
R. Sreedhar, the former fielding coach of the Indian team, has written a book about his cricket career. In Chapter 42 of the book, ‘Coaching Beyond: My Days With Indian Cricket Team’, it is mentioned that in 2016, Virat Kohli wanted the captaincy and was told by then coach Ravi Shastri to ‘be patient’. In the book, “Immediately after taking over the Test captaincy, Kohli tried hard to captain all three teams.
Knowing this, Ravi Shastri called Kohli to his room one night and said, ‘You got the Test captaincy only because you quit as Dhoni. Wait till he himself resigns as ODI and T20 captains. Till then you have to be patient. ‘Dhoni himself will give you that position. Till then you have to be patient. You have to give Dhoni respect.
Only then, when you become the captain tomorrow, the players will respect you. If you leave it and try to reach the captaincy in another way, if the players know about it, it will become a big problem for your cricketing career.”
Also, Sridhar said that it was because Virat Kohli followed this advice of Ravi Shastri that he was able to maintain a good relationship with Dhoni and coach Ravi Shastri handled the Kohli issue well.