Yuvraj Singh Labels Virat Kohli-Led India As The New 'World Leaders' Of Cricket

Ever since Virat Kohli took over the reins as captain, the Indian cricket team has undoubtedly managed to scale new heights in international cricket. Under his tutelage, the Indian side romped to nine consecutive Test series win - a joint-record with Australia under Ricky Pointing. In the One-Day Internationals (ODIs), Kohli has led the side in 49 games and now boasts a win percentage of 79.16 which is better than the likes of MS Dhoni (59.57), Mohammad Azharuddin (54.16) and Sourav Ganguly (53.90). More recently, Kohli was once again at the helm when India recorded their historic ODI series win against South Africa, their first-ever bilateral series in the Rainbow Nation. What no other Indian men's side could achieve since India's first tour of South Africa in 1992, Kohli-led rampaging India did last month. Currently, India is ranked number one in both Tests and ODIs, while they are placed third in the T20I rankings. © BCCL With their bowling unit looking sharp with every game, batsmen - more often than not - firing all cylinders and good fielding display giving them an extra edge; it's safe to say that India have transformed themselves into a side that's capable of overwhelming any opponent. With plaudits raining in from all corners of the globe, the Indian team was recently lauded by none other than their old warhorse Yuvraj Singh who didn't just praise the Men in Blue, but also tipped them to 'conquer the world'. Speaking on India's epic comeback after 1-2 loss in Tests, Yuvraj said: “I think it is a pretty great performance. They showed a lot of character after losing the Test series. It was as a hard-fought Test series, could have gone either way. But it was a very convincing win in the ODI series. Kohli led from the front with some big runs”. © BCCL “Spinners bowled very well especially Kuldeep (Yadav) and (Yuzvendra) Chahal and got South Africa into trouble. And then they stepped on the gas and won the T20 series 2-1. Going abroad playing three series winning two definitely shows India's dominance,” the left-handed batsman said on the sidelines of the 18th Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco. While Kohli has already set his sights on winning the much-anticipated tours of England and Australia, Yuvi feels that India will need consistent performances from the players to achieve the elusive goal. “It's a good start to believe that you can dominate outside. If you can consistently do that in England and Australia you definitely will have the belief,” he said. “Now the team is set to conquer the world. England and Australia will be testing series but if we can get some consistent performances it will give a lot of self belief to the players,” Yuvraj added. © BCCL Apart from lauding his teammates, Yuvi also offered some words of advice for the young guns like Prithvi Shaw and Shubman Gill who have already secured attractive pay-checks from their respective franchises in the 2018 IPL auctions. “The more they get better the more money they will earn. So they don't have to worry about money. They have to focus on how quickly they can do better and play for India,” he said when asked about the Indian Under-19 cricketers. I think Prithvi, Shubman, Abhishek Sharma are great talents and hopefully in the next coming years we will see them play for India. I am sure the IPL will give them a great platform to learn from other international players and feel the hype of international cricket. So it's very important tournament for them and they should enjoy it,” Yuvraj said.