Captain Kohli exudes confidence

Virat Kohli, who has faced nothing but disappointment (team-wise) during his decade long stint with the Royal Challengers, blamed poor decision behind the multiple failures.

“The failure lies where decisions aren’t made properly,” said Kohli at the launch function of the RCB mobile app here on Saturday. “If I sit here and say our luck was bad, that won’t be right. You make your own luck, and if you make poor decisions and the other team makes good ones, you will lose. When we played big matches too, our decision making wasn’t right. When your decision making is spot on and balanced, those teams win the IPL. The teams that are more relaxed, don’t take the pressure too much, and take good decisions in pressure moments – they should get the credit for winning.”

Kohli, however, exuded confidence but requested the fans not to exert too much pressure on the team. “When you choose players you obviously want to choose the strongest players that are in front of you and what your team requires the most. I think from that point of view we’ve been spot on doing that. But you can never predict how a season is going to go. In a couple of finals that we reached we felt that maybe we don’t have the right balance, but suddenly your players get into a zone where they’re unstoppable and then you just back that team throughout the season.

“I think the thing we spoke about creating a culture and expecting people to follow it is going to be key. Every team is strong in the IPL, you have world-class players playing all over. It’s the team that wants it the most, and wants it more badly that goes through.

“That is something we’ll look forward to bringing out in the players this season and everyone is really driven about that. I can guarantee you there will be no lack of commitment or pride of playing for RCB this season.... We will require absolute professionalism from all our players. We’ll give responsibility to the players to handle themselves on the field, off the field, and take good decisions, be responsible about their life and the sport as well.”