Virat Kohli, R Ashwin
He had a 'few good men' at his disposal and Virat Kohli transformed them into a champion outfit with generous helping from his trusted lieutenant Ravichandran Ashwin.
The Indian captain took the Test team to the top of the world rankings with brilliant batting and inspirational leadership. And then he had his lethal weapon, the enforcer responding to the name of Ravichandran Ashwin.
With Ashwin being conferred the ICC's 'Test Cricketer of the Year', hopefully Indian cricket's search for the 'Next Kapil Dev' ends.
The team made winning a habit with 9 triumphs out of the 12 Test matches played this year. A 2-0 win in the Caribbean followed by 3-0 rout of New Zealand and 4-0 drubbing of England showed that Kohli's boys never took their foot off the pedal. The skipper's 1215 runs with a hat-trick of double hundreds in three back-to-back series set a benchmark and the 'Crazy Diamond' Ashwin only took it a notch higher with 72 wickets in the season along with 612 runs.
Ashwin's metamorphosis from a defensive bowler to an attacker happened under Kohli. The eight five-fors and three 10-wicket hauls in this year's Test matches placed him at the cusp of being quickest bowler to 250 Test wickets. For Kohli the batsman, the year started with a couple of memorable T20 knocks during World T20 — a match-winning half-century against Pakistan on a wicked Eden Gardens track followed by an epic knock against Australia at Mohali —something which will be remembered for a long time to come.
One witnessed a new dimension to 'Test batsman Kohli' as he showed the art of saving a Test match with his defensive batting against England at Rajkot. The innings of 49 not out will be as significant as his double hundreds.