Virat Kohli showed no signs of captaincy burden when he was Team India skipper: Sunil Gavaskar

Rohit Sharma will begin his captaincy tenure in Tests when India lock horns with Sri Lanka in the series opener of the two-match series, which gets underway on March 04 in Mohali. While Rohit has got off to a fabulous start as the limited-overs skipper, it will be interesting to see how he goes about his business as the Test captain.

Rohit has inherited a solid Test unit from his predecessor Virat Kohli, who led India from 2015 to early 2022. Kohli resigned from the Test captaincy post after India's loss to South Africa, 2-1, in the three-match series held in the African nation early this year. Under Kohli, India achieved sizeable success in whites and also did very well in bilateral series in the white-ball formats but failed to win an ICC title. 

Ahead of the India-SL series opener, Little Master Sunil Gavaskar recalled how Kohli wasn't affected by the additional responsibilities and never got bogged down as a batsman despite the captaincy tag.

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During a discussion on Star Sports, Gavaskar recalled that Kohli showed no effects of the burden of captaincy during his successful stint.

"Kohli, when he was captain, he showed that there were no effects of the burden of captaincy. He was reeling off hundreds just every other innings. So don't think captaincy was ever a burden on him," Gavaskar said. 

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Gavaskar asserted, "As a captain what happens is that you are concerned about everybody else. It's just a natural thing, you are concerned about your bowlers' forms, maybe there is a slight niggle injury, as a batting unit maybe your No.4 or No.5 are not getting the runs, getting out badly."

"So you might be scoring runs yourselves as a captain but you are always concerned about everybody else in the team. That is where you can't focus on your batting. As not a captain, you can focus entirely on your batting. That is the biggest advantage that you can have," the ex-Indian skipper added. 

All eyes are now on the new full-time captain Rohit. It will be interesting to see if he enjoys the same success with the bat as done by his predecessor Kohli.