‘Still haven’t seen the best of Virat Kohli’ – Greg Chappell

Kohli, the India captain, is currently in England for the ongoing five-match Test series. India conceded the series after losing the fourth Test by 60 runs in Southampton, but Kohli sits atop the run charts and has been head and shoulders above the rest of the batsmen from either side.

He has 544 runs in four matches, with two centuries and three half-centuries, and averages 68. The second-highest scorer – England vice-captain Jos Buttler – has 260 runs in as many matches.

It is indicative of the strides Kohli has taken since the last time India toured England in 2014, when he managed just 134 runs in 10 innings, and he is currently the No.1-ranked batsman in the MRF Tyres ICC Rankings for Test batsmen.

However, Chappell believes Kohli can get even better. “Kohli, as well as having great physical talent, has the mental capacity and the emotional capacity to deal with what it takes to be successful in that really harsh environment,” Chappell told CricketNextin an interview.

“I don’t know that there are many with more will to succeed than Virat. He has a real desire. Something’s driving him that is beyond what most people are capable of. I think we still haven’t seen the best of him.”

Chappell, who coached India from 2005 to 2007, looked back to his first impressions of Kohli, back in 2008 when he was an India Under-19 player, and remembers “a brash young fellow”.

“He was obviously a good prospect at that stage, probably a brash young fellow from memory,” said Chappell. “But I feel you have got to have a little bit of that in you for you to be a champion of anything.

“If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s probably going to be hard for you to get to the highest level. There was always a high level of belief in himself, which was important.”

Kohli’s achievements in England this year have been indicative of that belief, Chappell said. “What he has done in England on this tour has been quite exceptional. A lot of people doubted that he could manage in those conditions. I am assuming that he didn’t doubt it, or if he did doubt it, he was determined to overcome it.

“His batting on this tour has been very outstanding. The innings between him and (Ajinkya) Rahane in the first innings of the Trent Bridge Test when they were three down for not many was quite a performance.

“There is only one team in history that has come back from 2-0 down [Australia v England, 1936-37], so it’s tough in a dressing-room where you have been beaten badly to bounce back quickly, but I imagine that he would have been able to throw that off from a personal point of view. How he can help others do that is the real challenge.”

Chappell added that Kohli had exceeded expectations, and even matched some of the achievements of Sachin Tendulkar. “He has probably exceeded what anyone would have expected,” he said.

“I think after Tendulkar, most people felt that’s the pinnacle, but sport has a funny way of always throwing somebody up who can exceed what the champions of the past have done.”