India have registered a convincing win against West Indies in the first T20I game on the back of a brilliant inning from the captain Virat Kohli. Although he smashed 94 from just 50 balls, it wasn’t the usual fluent innings at first and he took time to set eyes in. However, he revealed the reason why he was struggling to middle the ball at the start of the innings.

“All the young batsmen watching, don’t follow the first half of my innings. That was really bad and I was trying to hit too hard,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation. “It was just about keeping upto the game because I didn’t want to put KL (Rahul) under pressure, so tried to strike at 140 at least, but I couldn’t get going properly. But I started to get going after that over from Jason.

“I analysed what went wrong and played accordingly in the second half of my innings. I was trying to hold shape and realised I am not a slogger, so tried to rely on my timing. Whenever I play T20 cricket I am not someone who comes to the ground to hit the ball in the air to entertain the crowd. I focus on doing the job,” he added.

Virat Kohli further expressed how he likes to play the long innings and also said that he doesn’t want to change his natural style of batting.

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“I don’t want to change my game too much because I play all three formats. I just want to contribute in all three formats, that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to be a format specialist,” added Kohli.

He was asked about his celebration after hitting Kesrick Williams for a maximum when he said, “It’s not from the CPL, it happened to me in Jamaica when he got me out. So I thought I’ll tick a few in the notebook as well, but all good. There were a few words, but smiles at the end. That’s what you want to see. Good competitive cricket but in the end shake hands. That’s what cricket is all about. Play it hard but have respect for opponents.