If I thought like people on the outside, I would be on the outside: Virat Kohli on his batting form

Virat Kohli is not perturbed by his low run of scores on the tour of New Zealand as the he feels analysing too much can unnecessarily clutter his mind.

New Zealand has been one rare overseas tour in recent times when the India captain could not live up to his high standards, scoring only one half-century so far in nine innings across three formats.

His sequence of scores read 45, 11, 38, 11 (T20s); 51, 15, 9 (ODIs) and 2 and 19 (first Test). So how does he assess his own batting performance?

“I am absolutely fine. I am batting really well. I feel that sometimes scores don’t reflect the way you are batting and that’s what can happen when you don’t execute what you want to well,” Kohli told reporters after India lost the first Test by 10 wickets.

“Look, when you play so much cricket and you play for so long, obviously you will have three-four innings that don’t go your way. If you try and make too much out of it, it’ll keep piling on,” the skipper has his priorities clear.”

Kohli doesn’t pay too much attention to how people react to a defeat, and he follows the same philosophy when they talk about his batting.

“I think it’s about staying in a good space and I know the chat on the outside changes with one innings. But I don’t think like that. If I thought like people on the outside, I would probably be on the outside right now,” Kohli said with a hint of sarcasm.

According to him, making an honest effort everytime one goes out in the middle should be the priority.

“I think it’s all about doing the basics right and putting the hard work in practice. You can’t really walk in thinking that I have to do it every time. You want to do it. But if it doesn’t come off, then you don’t have to beat yourself up too much.”

At the Hagley Oval in Christchurch, Kohli will be happy to even score a 40 if that helps the team win the Test match. A century in a lost cause is irrelevant as far as he is concerned.

“I am looking forward to contributing in a win in the next Test. It doesn’t matter what I do. It’s never been about my performance on tour or about how many runs I score. It’s all about if the team wins, even a 40 is good. If the team loses, then even a 100 is irrelevant for me, and I’m going to stay in that mindset,” he said.

(With inputs from PTI)