Indian skipper Virat Kohli has clarified that they looking towards Ajinkya to open the innings along with Rohit Sharma in the first ODI against Australia at Chennai on Sunday.
During the pre-match press conference, Virat said, “It’s up to the player to take up a versatile position what the team requires him to do. I am not saying it’s easy. Now we are backing Rahane at the top of the order so he knows his plans are clear. Once you get that balance with given that player more chances then he gets more confident of his role in the team.”
Indian skipper reckons that there is lots of competition for various positions in the playing XI since they have three outstanding players in KL Rahul, Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav. However, he feels that Rahul will come well after a poor ODI series against Sri Lanka. He said, “KL is a outstanding talent and proved himself in all formats. He needs to be back because we believe he has the ability, once he gets his role done, then he will start winning you games and we are very sure of than.”
He further elaborated, “You will access the strength and weaknesses of the teams but you cannot increase or decrease you intensity according to who you are playing against. That’s not being fair to the sport and that’s something we as a team do not believe is. So, we like prepare the same way and play with same intensity regardless of who we are playing.”
Talking about the importance of having proper all-rounder, Kohli said, “Two all-rounders provide that kind of balance. Someone like Hardik Pandya or Akshar Patel or Ravindra Jadeja. I think we need to identify two of those guys for your side to have more strength in both the departments. That is something that all of the sides are going to move towards this because of the strength it gives in both departments alongwith being a top fielder as well. It’s very very important. You need a proper all-rounder and not just a bowling and a batting all-rounder.”
Despite scoring 30 centuries in just 186 ODI innings for India, Kohli also mentioned that he doesn’t look for personal milestones when playing for India. He said, “I don’t play for the three-figure mark that’s why I end up crossing it more times because I am not thinking about it. I don’t put myself under pressure in terms of achieving a landmark. In that process, things end up happening because you want to stay until the end and if there is enough on the board you end up achieving those landmarks.”
Here is the press conference video:
https://www.facebook.com/IndianCricketTeam/videos/1605135902841430/
