Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan is described as “The Angry Young Man.” The reason for the title is because of the movies he has delivered in 1970’s and 80’s which would echo with sentiments of the youth at the time who had to deal with the political and social turmoil in the country which impacted them with unemployment and corruption was on the rise and the roles Amitabh picked at the time resonated with the frustrations and sentiments of the young population.
Drawing a similar parallel to Virat Kohli when he took over the captaincy, the team was starting a new cycle and was in a bit of turmoil after the golden generation of batting has ended with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and VVS Laxman all moving on from the game, and Kohli, alongside Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, had to build in new culture into the team. Former Indian batting coach Sanjay Bangar recalled the side needed some fire to be ignited at the time, which Kohli did, and he changed India’s image in test matches completely.
“Virat Kohli has a natural character, like brash, in your face and that was his natural character. A natural character always feels right. Why did Amitabh Bachchan’s films work in the 1975-1980 era? It was because there was this thought of an angry young man and in the Indian society, anger was somewhere simmering,” Bangar said while speaking on DD Sports.
“Indian cricket needed some aggression because our fabulous four had retired and Kohli had to take cricket forward, which he did in his own style. He changed India’s image completely in how they approach Tests,” Bangar said.
Setting culture
India went all guns blazing in 2014 chasing 364 runs in Adelaide. It was Virat Kohli’s first game as red-ball captain and the team’s willingness to chase down the total instead of looking for a draw on the final day was indicative of the brand of cricket the Indian talisman wanted to instill at the time which also eventually made him the best Indian Test captain with 40 wins.
“We were transitioning then when you (Gautam Gambhir) guys had made way for the younger team Mahi bhai left the Test captaincy for me it was…I was 25 and I had a team of 25-24-year-olds how do we become that team of household names as you become? I sat down like…I thought It couldn’t happen by chance. When I started to think from the Point Of View where Indian cricket has to be in seven years the solutions came,” recalled Kohli speaking on BCCI TV in a chat with Gambhir.
Explaining the process Kohli said, “Need to give ownership to five batters and a keeper to get us 350-400 runs. You can’t have a seventh option to give cushion to the batters.” Before Kohli took over the leadership, India for the most part played with seven batters including a keeper and four bowlers.
