Virat Kohli needs to take some of the blame, but not all of it

Kohli's nine-year stint as the RCB skipper ended with a defeat to KKR in the eliminator of the IPL 2021

So Virat Kohli finishes as the RCB captain without leading his team to the title. He has already called time on leading the country in the T20 after the World Cup in November, and he might be tempted to bow out as captain in the white ball game altogether. He doesn’t need to decide now; anything that reduces his workload can only be good for Indian cricket as it will free up the best batsman in the world.

Kohli, one of the most successful of international captains, with a win percentage of nearly 64 in all formats combined, will thus find an asterisk against his captaincy record in domestic cricket. He was a terrific captain for RCB when things were going well, but less so at other times. As India’s Test wins in Australia in particular, and later England (under Kohli’s captaincy) showed, a team is more than a collection of individuals.