I was considered as failed captain for not winning an ICC trophy: Virat Kohli
New Delhi, Feb 25: Former India skipper Virat Kohli says he was labelled a "failed" captain by a section of experts and fans for not winning an ICC trophy.
Under Kohli's captaincy, India failed to win the 2017 Champions Trophy, the 2019 World Cup, the 2021 World Test Championship final against New Zealand, besides suffering a premature exit from the 2021 T20 World Cup in the UAE.
But Kohli said a lot was made out of the losses, given that he was part of the 2011 World Cup-winning side, the 2013 Champions Trophy-winning unit under MS Dhoni and also a member of the team that won five Test maces.
Asked if he ever felt the pinch of not lifting an ICC trophy while leading the side, Kohli said, "Look you play to win tournaments. A lot was made of it (not lifting an ICC trophy as skipper). I captained in the 2017 Champions Trophy, I captained the 2019 World Cup side, I captained India in the (inaugural) World Test Championship final.
"So, after three ICC tournaments... we lost the last (2021) T20 World Cup. We didn't qualify. We reached the finals of 2017 Champions Trophy, semi-finals of the (2019) World Cup, final of (World) Test Championship, and I was considered as a failed captain."
Kohli was speaking at the Season 2 of the RCB Podcast.
The former captain said he prided himself for the "cultural changes" he was able to bring into the team.
"I never judged myself from that point of view (defeats in ICC tournaments). What we ended up achieving as a team and as a cultural change for me, that's always going to be a matter of pride because a tournament happens for a certain period of time, but a culture happens over a long period of time, and for that you need consistency," Kohli said on Royal Challengers Bangalore's podcast.
"For that (bringing about cultural change), you need more character than just winning a tournament. So, I won the (2011) World Cup as a player, I won the (2013) Champions Trophy as a player, I've been part of a team that has won five Test maces.
"If you look at it from that point of view, there have been people who have never won a World Cup. I'm always grateful for what I have."
He drew comparison with Sachin Tendulkar, saying the legend won a World Cup in his sixth attempt, while he was part of the team that won the global trophy in his very first appearance.
"Sachin Tendulkar was playing his sixth World Cup if I am not wrong, and that was the one he won. I was able to be a part of the team first time and I ended up being part of a winning side.
"So, if I have to look at what has gone wrong in my career, it's very easy to do that. But I have to look at what's gone right in my career and I'm grateful for that.
"I'm not mad for my trophy cabinet to be full. To me that's always been a byproduct of how you conduct yourself, (the) kind of discipline you have and how you are striving towards excellence on a daily basis. I feel I have been very honest to that aspect."
Kohli said Dhoni was the only person who reached out to him when he was going through a lean patch. The Delhi cricketer has overcome that phase and last month scored his third hundred in four ODIs.
The Indian superstar had ended a long wait for his first hundred in close to three years with a ton in the Asia Cup T20 tournament last September.
Kohli shares a strong bond with Dhoni and that reflects in the manner in which he talks about India's World Cup-winning skipper.
"What is interesting is that throughout this phase apart from (wife) Anushka, who has been the biggest source of strength for me because she has been with me throughout this whole time and she has seen me very closely as how have I felt, things that I have gone through, the kind of things that have happened.
"The only person who, apart from my childhood coach and family, genuinely reached out to me has been MS Dhoni," Kohli said.
Kohli shared the dressing room with Dhoni for 11 years between 2008 and 2019 and calls the charismatic cricketer from Ranchi his 'captain forever'.
"He reached out to me and you can rarely get in touch with him. If I call him on any random day, 99 percent he will not pick up (the phone), because he just does not look at the phone.
"So, for him to reach out to me, twice it has happened now and one of the things that he'd mentioned in the message while reaching out to me was that: 'when you are expected to be strong and looked at as a strong individual people forget to ask how are you doing'?
"So, it (Dhoni's words) hit home for me because I have always been looked at as someone who is very confident, mentally very strong, who can endure any circumstances and find a way and show us the way.
"Sometimes, what you realise is that at any given point of time in life as a human being you need to take a couple of steps backwards, understand how you are doing, how your wellbeing is placed. He knows exactly what is going on. He understand it because he's been there himself and he experience what I experienced right now.
"So it is only out of experience and feeling those feelings in that moment is the only way you can truly be compassionate towards another individual who is going through the same thing," Kohli added.
When Kohli abruptly quit Test captaincy following the tour of South Africa in January 2022, he had revealed that Dhoni was the only one who had messaged him.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
