The last calendar year of 2022c couldn’t be that promising for the Indian cricket team as they faced a lot of debacles amidst the unprecedented conundrum in the management of the team. Meanwhile, the Indian team also finished the year 2022 being number two in the Test rankings which was also marked the end of the streak as the Top Test Team that was running from 2016 to 2021.
Notably, the Indian Cricket Board happened to make some changes in the setup by appointing veteran batter Rohit Sharma as the skipper of the National Team across all formats of the game. But unfortunately, the team faced a lot of embarrassing moments including the absence of skipper Rohit Sharma in very crucial matches like the one-off Edgbaston Test against England in the month of July.
Meanwhile, a section of the Indian Cricket fans took no time in recalling Virat’s era as captain that witnessed India as the number one Team in the traditional format of the game. Fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment with Rohit Sharma and subsequently lavished praises on the ‘captain’ Virat Kohli.
Here’s how fans reacted:
virat kohli the greatest test captain ever pic.twitter.com/MPdpCib4xh
— Kevin (@imkevin149) December 25, 2022
Dominance of indian cricket team under the leadership of virat kohli Absolutely Superb 👑
— Mahi Sahil (@MahiSahil18) January 2, 2023
Team India roared in test under Virat . https://t.co/vW9W6tNM1i
— Akshay Bhalerao (@akshay_11b) January 2, 2023
They bullied Virat out of captaincy. Hopefully next captain is a young guy who has time to change the fortunes https://t.co/fkTIuxhaYO
— Cineguy (@Cineguy091) January 2, 2023
@imVkohli is the best test cricket captain in recent times. https://t.co/uAeDjpN4Gg
— அஜய் ஜெய்ராம் ந (@AjanJairamN) January 2, 2023
Tell me when Virat Kohli was the captain of Indian test team without actually telling when https://t.co/wtKOAVBzJU
— Your tweet is nice, that's why I (@realrajeshrk) January 2, 2023
England's highest-ever successful Test run chase ✅
— Cricket on BT Sport (@btsportcricket) July 5, 2022
Ninth-highest successful run chase in men's Test history ✅
England reach their target of 378 to beat India at Edgbaston!
The golden summer for this new era of English Test cricket continues 🙌 pic.twitter.com/j71jusB9Pu
Steven Smith, Cheteshwar Pujara, David Warner and Kane Williamson all of them ended their long wait for Test century.
— Akshat (@AkshatOM10) December 28, 2022
Now in 2023, it's time for Virat Kohli 🤍#PAKvNZ pic.twitter.com/lAlSUOxF41
The Indian Test Team took on Bangladesh in the recently concluded Test series against Bangladesh in December 2022. Interestingly, the regular skipper Rohit Sharma also missed this red-ball assignment against Bangladesh owing to an injury in his left thumb that he sustained during the second of the three-match ODI series against the hosts.
Senior batter and Rohit’s deputy KL Rahul was named as the stand-in skipper of the team in the two-match Test series against Shakib’s men. Although India won the series by a clean sweep margin of 2-0 courtesy of the batting heroics of veteran all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin KL Rahul miserably failed to live up to the expectations in the entire four innings of the two Tests.
The management conundrum and misery of the top order might be a major concern for the team management in the upcoming four-match Test series against Australia next month in February.