India captain Virat Kohli is not underestimating the Australian team sans the banned Steve Smith and David Warner and wants his team to win Test matches during their tour Down Under.
India will kick off their two-month-long tour of Australia with a three-match Twenty20 series beginning Wednesday, ahead of four Test matches and three One-Day Internationals.
The Indian team is at an advantage even before the tour begins considering Australia will be without their former captain and vice-captain, who are serving bans for their involvement in the ball-tampering scandal earlier this year.
However, Kohli is not considering this as a make-or-break tour for India. The 30-year-old addressed his first press conference of the tour in Brisbane. Here is what he said:
On dealing with pressure and attention in Australia:
These are things that are not controllable. I don’t think anyone aims to be at the centre of everything. It’s basically about focusing about what are the rights things to do and the things that a cricketer needs to focus on. All the noise and all the stuff that happens on the outside is as influencing as you want it to be, so I usually stay away from all this.
I focus on what I need to do, which is work hard at practice, think where the team needs to head, and help my teammates as much as possible. Those are my priorities and I don’t think of anything apart from that.
On praise from Aaron Finch that there is no weak link in Team India:
We definitely have a very strong side. I don’t think there is any side in world cricket that does not have any weaknesses or points that they need to keep working on. We as a side obviously keep striving to figure out what we need to work on and take our quality of cricket up. If we are playing at our best possible level, then we have to try and maintain it as long as possible.
These are things we think about all the time as a team and that’s why our level of cricket has gone up. We’ve been able to maintain our level because when we step on to the field we have 11 individuals who are striving for excellence and they want to be the best they can be on that particular day.
On Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar as a new-ball pairing:
Both of them have been outstanding. The reason they’re so good is that they are thinking bowlers. They understand the situation and get a gut feel of what a batsman is looking to do before they go in to bowl. The ability to predict what’s going to happen on each ball is what keeps them a step ahead of the batsmen most of the time.
Sometimes they will get dominated like everyone does, but I think 85%-90% of the time they are spot on and that’s because they are always looking at how the game is going and how the batsmen are batting, what areas they’re hitting at, and what are the balls they need to execute in difficult situations.
Any captain would love to have both of them in the bowling attack. I have obviously been lucky to have both bowling so well for the team and giving us those breakthroughs. From now on it’s going to be much more difficult for others to step in unless there is any workload issue because till the World Cup we want our XI to play together as long as possible.
On Cricket Australia’s decision to not slash Smith, Warner, Bancroft suspensions:
I honestly don’t know what exactly happened before those decisions were taken. Obviously everyone saw what happened [in the match] but unless I know the details it’s not my place to comment on. The decision is being made by someone and that’s being going on on the sidelines. It’s not my place to give an opinion on.
On whether this is a make-or-break tour for India:
We definitely are not thinking that this is the last opportunity for us to win in Australia and that we might not come here again. I don’t think that’s the right kind of mindset to have. Whatever series we play, our aim is to win that series. We don’t want to be a team that wins one-odd Test match here and there [in an away series].
We have figured out our mistakes in England. The quality of cricket was very high but our mistakes were as radical and that’s why we lost the games. We won the game where we committed lesser mistakes. We were at par with the other team throughout [in that game]. I think we have the ability to compete with the other team at par.
In Test cricket, whichever team makes lesser mistakes wins the game. We are focussing on cutting down our mistakes and if a situation goes bad for us, how to plug that situation as soon as possible and find an outcome how to come out of that situation so we can stabilise our position.
We have identified those areas and obviously Australia is always a big tour for any Indian side. We played good cricket last time but were not able to win games. This time around we definitely want to change that. We definitely believe we have the quality to do so but it will boil down to how we think in each moment in every game we play on this tour.
Our limited-overs form has been good. We just want to continue that as a whole. Throughout the tour we want to do the little things right and have our focus precise so that we can win more situations than the opposition.
On Faf du Plessis’s comment that this Australian team is “tame”:
There is no denying the quality they have in their side. To be honest, they still have world-class cricketers. Obviously missing out on two of their best batsmen is not an ideal thing for any team but even then they have guys, especially in limited overs, who can do damage at any given point of time.
You can never underestimate any side. We have come here to compete against Australia. We definitely will not take anything for granted here, regardless of any kind of situation that presents itself. Our focus as a team is to play good-quality cricket and win games.
We haven’t played Australia after everything that happened, so I can’t really say what the atmosphere is going to be on the ground. We definitely just want to focus on quality cricket.
On Australia’s vulnerability and the players’ pact after ball-tampering scandal:
It was something that all of us saw and it’s something that’s in the past now. I don’t want to speak of that again and again. The vulnerability factor depends on how a team plays on a particular day.
I have always believed that as much as experience you have of playing at this level, still newcomers can come and make an impact as long as they believe they can. When you step on to the field, everyone has an equal opportunity of upsetting any opposition and having their day with the ball, bat, or in the field.
The Australian team is more than capable of doing that even after, as I said, losing their quality batsmen. They still have quality in their side to win games of cricket and we definitely will have to be at our absolute best to win against Australia in Australia.
On aggression:
Aggression depends on the situation on the field. If the opposition is aggressive towards you, then you have to counter it. We have never been the team that started anything. We always draw a line for self-respect. We believe in our ability and if we think anyone is crossing that line then we stand against it.
Aggression can also be within the team – how possessive you are of the situation, how aggressive you are as a team towards taking wickets. That aggression is visible in your body language on the field, in how long bowlers can bowl in a particular area, in body language of batsmen.
For me, aggression is to have the passion to win. An obsession to be on top of every ball. I think aggression has different meanings for different people. As far as I am concerned, the meaning is to win the match at all costs and give my 120% on every ball, whether it is on the field or applauding someone else from outside, or while I am batting.