2018-2021 was a golden period for Test cricket as far as India are concerned. Indian team beating and challenging the likes of South Africa, England Australia in their own backyard with their bowling attack was something very new for the Indian audience, which saw their bowlers get pasting for long days in 2011 and 2014 on the England and Australia tours. Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav were at the centre of it all, with Mohammed Siraj coming in the latter part and the pace attack was built by Virat Kohli, Ravi Shastri and Bharat Arun.
Reminiscing his captaincy stint at the helm of the Test team, Kohli looked at that period fondly saying that it is still the proudest moment of his career. Speaking to India's new head coach Gautam Gambhir in a special interaction for the BCCI website, Kohli opened up about the four quicks and why Test cricket will remain the pinnacle of the game after the former India opener credited him for the improved performance in the longest format.
"If you look at the generation of bowlers we've just had, when you talk about Ishant Sharma, the first thing that comes to mind is the spell at Perth to Ricky Ponting as a youngster" Kohli said. If you talk about his cricket career, Ishant Sharma 100-plus Test matches for India.
"Zaheer Khan, these many wickets for India in "Test cricket" [311] and a great 50-over World Cup. Mohammed Shami is not a world-renowned bowler because he is a great T20 bowler. He is one of the best Test bowlers in the world and what he did in the 50-over World Cup, adds value.
"When you speak about a Bumrah, you don't talk about his T20 yorkers. Yesterday, we were talking about this. He is the most complete all-format bowler," Kohli added. Kohli and the new coach agreed with one another that taking 20 wickets is the only way one can win Test matches, especially in the SENA countries.
"When you bring in value of a cricketer, you cannot place that value separating the other two formats. And if you want to be valued as a cricketer, it's always going to come with other longer formats as well.
"Same with Siraj and the USP of a Siraj is that he wants to play Test cricket and he is hungry to do well and wants to win away from home. These are the values other cricketers can look up to," Kohli added.
Kohli further said that he wanted characters in the team, who wanted to bowl and win Test matches for India away from home and said that he was lucky that he had such bowlers at his disposal. Under Kohli, India won 40 Tests out of 68 and 16 of them were outside home, five more than Sourav Ganguly, who held the record before him.
