The Indian skipper, Virat Kohli has clarified that IPL performances will have “no influence” on the World Cup team selection, calling the speculation a “very, very radical analysis”. In the World Cup squad of India, almost 12 to 13 slots are more or less been finalized, India will be trying to find the last couple of slots for the World Cup, which starts May 30 in England, after the five games in the upcoming ODI series against Australia.
During the media interaction ahead of the ODI series opener, Kohli said, “No, I don’t see the IPL having any influence on World Cup selection. I think that will be a very, very radical sort of analysis.”
There were rumors that IPL could help in deciding between Dinesh Karthik and Rishabh Pant for the second wicketkeeper’s position but Kohli said that one good IPL won’t make much of a difference for any World Cup hopeful.
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Describing the issue further, Virat said, “We need to have a solid team. Before we head into the IPL, we need to be absolutely clear of what team we want for the World Cup. I don’t see anything changing on how the IPL goes for any of the players.”If one or two players do not have a good IPL season, it doesn’t mean that they are out of the picture for the World Cup. Those things are not going to matter.”
Talking about the remaining positions for the World Cup, Kohli is keen to give Pant some game time but certainly not at the cost of playing a bowler less, taking the field restrictions into account.
Virat elaborated, “We will have to think about the combinations. I don’t think playing a bowler less is a good idea because with the extra fielder in till the 40th over, it becomes very difficult to sort of get a few guys to chip in with a few overs here and there. We will have to work out the batting combination to try and give game-time to the guys we want to. But, I don’t see the bowling combination changing.”
The skipper also gave a hint that KL Rahul, who seems to have regained some form, has made a very good case for himself for the World Cup squad.
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Talking about Rahul, Kohli said, “KL, when he plays well, is operating at a different level I feel. We have seen him do that in the IPL last year and in patches, over the last season, we played as a team. It’s very difficult to find a consistent player, who can play good cricketing shots and still win you games at a strike-rate of over 140 or 150. He has all the shots and has a solid game as well. It will be interesting to see what happens in the final World Cup squad. It’s good he’s in great nick and hopefully, he can carry it forward.”
Kohli was seemed irked when a reporter asked whether the team is experimenting at the cost of winning the series.
The Indian skipper explained, “We are playing to win the series or else I’ll leave the ball to hit the stumps. As I said earlier, if we want to see how a few guys play in a certain situation, we’ll play them again in that situation. It’s not like if a guy is not playing in a certain situation, he doesn’t have the ability.”
Virat reiterated that India couldn’t win the T20I series simply because Australia were a better side.
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Kohli elaborated, “We could not win the T20 series because in the first match, we didn’t play good cricket and in the second match, Australia played better than us. I think it’s important you understand why we lost. We always want to win games for India. If we only had to experiment, we would have got out for 50 as everybody would have got out trying to hit sixes.”
