You can’t win every game: Shastri on India’s poor form

In the backdrop of Virat Kohli’s departure as captain from all formats, India, under stand-in skipper KL Rahul, was blanked 0-3 in the ODIs to cap a forgettable tour of South Africa. India had earlier suffered back-to-back defeats in Johannesburg and Cape Town to lose the Test series 1-2. At the end of that assignment, Kohli stepped down from captaincy in the longest format, marking the end of an era in Indian cricket.

“If you lose one series, people start criticising... You can’t win every game, there will be wins and losses,” Shastri, whose tenure ended after the Men’s T20 World Cup in the UAE last year, said on the sidelines of the ongoing Legends League Cricket T20 in Muscat.

Shastri said that he did not follow a single ball of the South Africa tour, but refused to believe the standard has dropped. “How can the standard go down suddenly? For five years, you have been number one side in the world,” he asserted. Kohli announced his decision to quit as Test skipper a day after the team lost 1-2. Shastri said that such decisions should be respected as it boils down to individual choice.

“It is his choice. You have to respect his decision. There is a time for everything. A lot of big players in the past have left captaincy when they felt they wanted to focus on their batting or on their cricket. Whether it’s (Sachin) Tendulkar, (Sunil) Gavaskar or (MS) Dhoni. And, it is Virat Kohli now,” explained Shastri.