Aakash Chopra Compares MS Dhoni & Virat Kohli’s World Cup Squads, Says Latter Didn’t Have Team to Win Trophy

Former India opener Aakash Chopra is of the opinion that Team India failed to win the 2019 World Cup because Virat Kohli did not have a team who could win. India had lost a closely fought semi-final against New Zealand.

Speaking on his YouTube Channel compared MS Dhoni’s 2011 World Cup side with Kohli’s side. In fact he talked about each and every player.

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“If you have to choose between Tendulkar and Rohit, whom will you choose, very tough call. They may just cancel each other out because Rohit has struck 5 centuries in a World Cup edition, which no one has done. Between Rahul/Dhawan and Sehwag, my heart says to keep Sehwag ahead, but let me keep Dhawan ahead just for argument sake,” said Chopra.

“Between Gambhir and Kohli, no doubt this Kohli of 2019 is definitely ahead of Gambhir of 2011. Although Kohli was there in the 2011 team as well, there is a lot of difference between that Kohli and this Kohli. Yuvraj Singh is winning this race hands down against Dinesh Karthik/Kedar Jadhav/Pant/Pandya as a batsman, as a bowler, as a full package match-winner.

“Virat Kohli of 2011, we can keep Pant/DK/Kedhar/MSD ahead of him. Raina is again a match-winner. Whom will you compare with, probably Hardik Pandya? Raina is ahead that time even if you compare him with Kedar,” he added.

What was striking is that he picked Dhoni of 2011 over Dhoni of 2019.

“MS Dhoni of 2011 vs MS Dhoni of 2019, no doubt MSD of 2011. Harbhajan Singh is a match-winner, so is Jadeja, maybe 50-50. Jaddu will get more numbers for fielding, Harbhajan Singh for bowling, Jaddu slightly ahead in batting in international ODI stage. Let us cancel out Zaheer and Bumrah, they are at par as bowlers almost, both are match-winners.

“Shami slightly ahead of Munaf. You will have to keep Nehra ahead of Kuldeep or Chahal,” Chopra said.

“So if you see the full comparison, MS Dhoni’s team of 2011 has won. That is why, if there is a match Dhoni’s team is stronger and a match-winning team,” said Chopra.

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“Should we get a slight perspective, if you have not won the World Cup in 2019, probably you didn’t have a World Cup-winning team only.

“Because the middle-order was so brittle, you didn’t have the team to win. You should have played Shami and you didn’t play him. You didn’t prepare the team and Shikhar Dhawan got injured as well. So if you consider everything, 2011 team was lot ahead of this team that played in 2019. Therefore the trophy is with the 2011 team and not the 2019 team,” he concluded.