'You Can't Win Every Match': Ravi Shastri On Team India's Flop Show In South Africa

Virat Kohli decided to step down from the captaincy of the Test team a day after losing the Test series. He said it was a personal decision and such decisions should be respected.

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New Delhi: Former Indian cricket team coach Ravi Shastri feels there is no need for team India to panic despite losing the Test and ODI series to a weak South African team and that the team will recover soon from this "temporary phase". After Virat Kohli stepped down from captaincy in all three formats, the Indian team suffered a 0-3 defeat in the ODI series under stand-in skipper KL Rahul's captaincy. In the Test series, India lost 1-2 against Proteas.

Ravi Shastri told PTI, "After losing a series, people start criticizing. You can't win every match. Wins-losses are part and parcel of the game." Shastri's tenure ended after the T20 World Cup last year. He said he had not seen a single ball of the series against South Africa but refused to believe that the level of the team's performance had declined. 

"How can the performance suddenly fall? For five years you've been the number one team in the world." Shastri said there was no need to worry and that the failure is a temporary period. "For the last five years, the winning ratio has been 65 percent, so what is the matter of concern. Opposition teams should worry." 

Kohli decided to step down from the captaincy of the Test team a day after losing the Test series. Shastri said it was a personal decision and such decisions should be respected. He said, "It's his decision. His decision should be respected. There is a time for everything. In the past too, many big players have given up captaincy to focus on their batting. Be it Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, or MS Dhoni and now Virat Kohli."

"I haven't seen a single ball from this series but I don't think Virat Kohli will change much." "I have taken a break from cricket after seven years. One thing is certain that I don't talk about mutual differences in public, from the day my term ended, I made it clear that I will not talk about my players on a public platform," Shastri said.

Kohli remained India's most successful Test captain by winning 40 out of 68 Tests, but under his captaincy in limited-overs cricket, the Indian team could not win any ICC title. Shastri said a captain's assessment should not be based on this. "A lot of big players didn't win the World Cup. How does that matter? Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble also did not win, would they be called a bad player?," he said.

"How many World Cup-winning captains do we have, Sachin Tendulkar won after playing six World Cups. In the end, you are judged by your game and your role as the ambassador of the game. How honestly you played and how long you played," he added.

On Kohli's stand with the BCCI on the issue of captaincy, he said, "Communication is important. I don't know what happened between them. I wasn't a part of it. I can't say anything without talking to both sides. In the absence of information, it is better to keep your mouth shut."