Time for Virat Kohli to replace M S Dhoni as India captain: Sunil Gavaskar

Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar feels young Virat Kohli is the future of Indian cricket and he is ready to take up the captaincy job from incumbent Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the aftermath of the series defeat against England.

England broke the 28-year-old jinx by defeating India 2-1 verdict in the Test series after the fourth and final match ended in a draw here today.

Gavaskar said it is time the selectors look to the future as Dhoni seemed out of sorts in this series.

"Till the fourth day of this Test I said there is no alternative to Mahendra Singh Dhoni, but now that Virat (Kohli) has come up with a 100 under trying circumstances I think he has discovered a good part about himself. I think he is ready to take on the mantle," the former India skipper said.

"I think this is something to be looked at in a positive manner because that's where the future is," Gavaskar told NDTV.

He also criticised the Indian team for the humiliating defeat but Dhoni's name came up for special mention for his ordinary and unaggressive captaincy in this series.

"If India were looking for a win they should have shown the intent by declaring at the overnight score. England batted exceedingly well but our bowlers were ineffective and our batters didn't do as much as they were expected to do. It was a team failure," he said.

"You don't put a forward short-leg and a silly point tojust get wickets. You also put them to pressurise the batsmen and get his wicket somwehere else. When you crowd a batsmen with fielders in his peripheral vision pressure automatically come on him and that's what he (Dhoni) didn't do," Gavaskar said about Dhoni's reluntance to deploy a more attacking field during England's second innings.

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