Kolkata: Steve Waugh feels writing off Virat Kohli is the best thing that could happen to him, two-tier Test system is thoroughly unsustainable, India-Pakistan is the biggest rivalry and Test cricket will very soon have a 40-year-old entrant again.
Speaking at the Laureus Sport for Good Mental Health and Wellbeing Forum, funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, the former Australia captain also has a simple solution to those who are going through a rough patch — get a hobby. And that no one deserves the award for comeback of the year more than Rishabh Pant.
Two days before the biggest cricket match of the year, Waugh is keeping India ahead but didn’t rule out an upset.
“Shubman Gill just got a hundred, a very good player. Obviously, there’s (Virat) Kohli,” Waugh said in an interaction with a select group of journalists. “Pakistan, they’ve been hot and cold over the last 12 months. They’re capable of doing really good things. You’re not sure what Pakistan side is going to turn up. India are favorites but wouldn’t surprise me either if Pakistan won that game.”
As always, Kohli’s form could be key to the outcome. And while his recent form hasn’t been great, Waugh feels he still has a lot to offer. “I never write off great players,” he said. “So, if people write someone off, like Virat Kohli, it’s probably the best thing they can do, because it will motivate him to go out and perform well. Technically, the tendency of hanging the bat outside off stump is something he could rectify pretty quickly. I think that comes down to concentration and focus.”
That said, Kohli’s scoring philosophy still upholds the tenets of one-day batting, something that’s on the wane now. “You’re reverse sweeping, you’re ramping, you’re playing all these amazing shots. Perhaps the players have forgotten 50 overs is a long time. It’s 300 balls,” said Waugh. “You’ve actually got time to build an innings. And you see someone like Kohli does really well in one-day cricket. Maybe the batters are taking too many risks earlier. That’s why we’ve not seen the big scores.”
Balancing itself perilously between Test cricket and T20, ODIs don’t get much traction these days. But Waugh feels ICC events like the Champions Trophy are a timely reminder of the format’s virtues. “Fifty overs are too long, but yeah, every time we have a World Cup, people fall in love with ODIs again. So, the Champions Trophy, whilst it’s not as high profile as the World Cup, obviously is important for players. But it’s going to be increasingly hard in the future to fit all formats into the game. And I guess the one format which will probably suffer a bit will be one-day cricket.”
At the top will always remain Test cricket, though Waugh doesn’t think the proposed two-tier system is feasible. “There aren’t enough teams to have two divisions. Playing the same teams all the time, the lower divisions won’t improve. I don’t see how that would work. You want cricket to be competitive and to be a world game. It can’t be just two or three sides being really good and the rest making up the numbers.”
