A day before India opens its T20 World Cup crusade against Pakistan, India commander Virat Kohli gave an understanding into the crew's attitude heading into the World Cup. In front of the match against most outstanding opponents Pakistan, Captain Kohli talked on a scope of points, including Hardik Pandya's choice and giving up T20 captaincy.
Yeah, we have spoken about our combinations, obviously. I’m not going to reveal them right now, but we have put in place a very balanced team, and something that we feel covers all bases properly. And we are pretty confident in terms of execution, as well, because the guys have been playing a lot of T20 cricket recently in the IPL and everyone is playing well, so that is a very positive thing for the team.
Now it’s purely down to execution out there in the middle, which everyone as I said is confident to do so and professional enough to understand their roles, and role clarity is something that we have addressed already. We feel very, very prepared.
I've already explained myself a lot. I don't think I need to harp on that anymore.
Our focus is to play well in this World Cup and do what we need to do as a team. The rest, I mean, people are trying to dig something that doesn't exist, and I'm not someone who's ever going to give order to that. I explained myself very honestly and openly, and if people feel there's more to it or there's something that's not been told, I feel pretty bad for them because that's certainly not the case. we just focus on what we need to do as cricketers.
Hence I always maintain that for me it's never been different to any other game of cricket that we play. Yes, the atmosphere in the stadium is different, and our mindset is no different, our preparations are no different, and our approach to the game is also certainly no different.
What Hardik Pandya brings at number 6 can't be created overnight
Well, honestly I feel that Hardik presently with his physical condition is getting better in terms of being prepared to bowl at least two overs for us at a certain stage in this tournament, and we believe, we strongly think that we can make the most of the opportunity that we have at hand until the time he starts bowling. We have considered a couple other options to chip in for an over or two. So we are not bothered about that at all.
What he brings at that No. 6 spot is something that you just can't create overnight, and hence I was always in favour of backing him in Australia as a batter purely, and we saw what he did in the T20 series and how he can take the game away from the opposition when he's in full flow.
These things from a discussion point of view seem very interesting that if he doesn't bowl will he be left out, but we understand the value he brings to the team as the No. 6 batter, and in world cricket if you look around, there are specialists who do that job, and it's very important to have that guy, especially in T20 cricket, who can play and impact innings of that stage. Even when the chips are down, he's someone who can play a long innings playing in that way.
For us that is way more valuable than forcing him to do something that he's not ready for at the moment, but he's motivated and he's very keen to start giving us a couple of overs, and when that happens, obviously the balance becomes even better, but we are pretty confident how we are heading into the start of this tournament.