Virat Kohli has been a trailblazer for India when it comes to Test cricket and earlier this month, he became the first ever India skipper to win a Test series on Australian soil. However, Kohli is not ready to rest on his laurels and he said that his vision is to make India into a superpower in Test cricket.
“I wouldn’t say goal but I would rather speak of a vision, which is for India to be a superpower in Test cricket or a very, very strong side in Test cricket in the years to come. I think if Indian cricket respects Test cricket, and Indian players respect Test cricket, then Test cricket will stay at the top because of the fan base that we have all over the world,” Kohli said in an interview to Star Sports.
“If we focus too much on shorter formats – yes, they’re important – but if we solely focus and look at them as an escape or an excuse to not be in the kind of situations that Test cricket presents to you, then I think there’ll start being a mental problem with the cricketers coming up,”
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“As long as you’re willing to wake up every morning for five days and do the hard yards and go do the dirty work – if you’re willing to bat for two hours and not score a run for the team – I think that is what people should prepare [for]. And that will require the team to lay out a certain things that needs to be done and for the next lot to keep following. So the next lot that comes in, they have to maintain that vision and then the people coming in will follow. I hope that continues and I will try my level best for as long as I can to keep that culture going,” he added.
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all won the World Cup yet they have not won a bilateral Test series in Australia. India became the first team from the subcontinent to create history and it took 71 years for them to win a series Down Under. Kohli was all praise for coach Ravi Shastri for supporting the team and he believes that Shastri knows where the game is heading because of his experiences as a player and a commentator.
“Ever since 2014, I think he’s [Shastri] one person who’s given me honest feedback whenever things required to be altered. I remember we sat down. I’d scored a Test century and a fifty in the same game in England, so he called me and he said, as far as batting is concerned, I’m not going to discuss anything with you now because you’ve done some something which I am proud of and everyone is proud of. But as a captain, we need to start thinking how to get the best out of this team and how to tactically be spot on. And that really hit me because I felt like, you know, there’s so much more to captaincy than you sometimes think.
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“Just to be able to get feedback from a person who makes you feel like the small contributions are much bigger in the in the scheme of things than you going out there and scoring runs yourself [was useful]. It’s [about] how you speak to the players, how you motivate the team. How you take decisions in crunch situations, how you’re aware where the game is heading.”
“He one person, because he’s done so much commentary, and he’s seen the game so much and has played so much himself – just watching the game – he knows where the game is heading,” Kohli said. “So just get getting feedback from him constantly has been the biggest help for me, in terms of moulding my own personality into captaincy. He’s someone who has never tried to change me just to be able to fit into the captaincy mode. And I think that was the most important thing and he’s been the most amazing support for the team and someone who’s backed the team through and through.
“I think he’s struck the perfect balance for this team. And he’s the one person who was there when we were No. 7 [in the rankings] in 2014. He was there and you know the transition started under him. And we started feeding off that mindset and started bringing that in, which I could eventually go out there and boost more [on the field]. But I think it was his vision for us to be fearless and play a certain kind of cricket, which I think he deserves a lot of credit for.”
First Published: Jan 16, 2019 12:43 IST
Source: HindustanTimes