Dhoni should continue as the captain, says Kapil Dev

With Virat Kohli successfully leading the Indian Test team to five consecutive series victories, there are rumours that the Delhi batsman will soon take over the reins from MS Dhoni in the ODIs and T20s as well. But former Indian captain Kapil Dev feels that Dhoni should continue as the captain in the shorter format.

“I think the answer people should look for is are we ready to ask Dhoni to take a back seat. It is more important. I think if he is good enough he should carry on. When the time will come Dhoni may quit all three formats,” Kapil told PTI on Saturday.

“But I think at the moment it is very important Dhoni is doing a good job. I think he has enough experience and he should continue,” he added.

When asked to compare Dhoni and Kohli as captains, Kapil replied, “It is too early to answer that and again the two individuals are different and every individual is different. Kohli is very expressive, while Dhoni is calm and quite. I think it is very difficult to compare because both have different teams and different attitude.

Kapil also said that aggression is not a mandatory quality to become a successful captain.

“Things have changed. Tomorrow you may ask can you compare these two with Sourav Ganguly as captain. So, every captain brings in his own input and aggression and motivation but it all depends on how you use these things with your team for best results. That is captaincy. It is not that you have to be aggressive and if you are not aggressive still you win the match, it is good enough,” the World Cup winner said.

The former pace spearhead was also impressed with the performances of the Indian pacers in recent times.

“It is not about 140 plus speed that Indian bowlers achieve but the line and length is very important. If you can bowl 135 speed and get movement, that is good enough. But again, if you have pace, you always get advantage of that,” he said.

“These days the boys work on that. It is good to see that they have the pace. Bhuvneshwar, Ishant, Umesh, Shami all bowl that speed. Fast bowlers have improved a lot,” Kapil added.

While there are quite a few who have criticized India's fielding in the ongoing series, Kapil feels that India's fielding has improved drastically over the years.

“I think basically the Indian fielding has improved a lot since our time. But still one can understand that all the XI fielders are not the same. They have two or three brilliant fielders in the side. If the majority of the players in a side also improve then the fielding could become better. When you talk about fielding in a team, everyone has to be good enough,” the former Indian coach said.

Speaking about India's performances abroad, Kapil said,  “Our record has certainly improved over the years. When we played on the England tour we were thrashed. Otherwise, we did well in the West Indies and Australia. We will see the future tours and tournament when we go there. At the moment, I think the improvement is there in our performances abroad.

“After all, if you do not win matches abroad, you cannot become number one in the world.”

When asked to give his opinion about playing day/night Tests, Kapil replied, “I think at the moment they are experimenting with first class matches. I think traditional things should continue. We need to keep the tradition like Wimbledon is always played on grass. You do not play Test matches with coloured cloths.”