Took it as two T20 games, says Kohli

Virat Kohli was understandably chuffed after hitting an unbeaten hundred that powered India past Sri Lanka in the triangular series on Tuesday.

Excerpts: 

On the stiffness of the target: 

If you get those kinds of thoughts in your mind, you are not going to achieve it. We always thought, look for one boundary an over and keep playing one over at a time and you never know if you need a 100 off the last 10 overs, it’s gettable a Twenty20 game. We took it as two Twenty20 games, probably get 120–130 runs in the first 20 and then go for it later.  

On planning the chase: We have such a strong lower-order who can hit the ball on merit. We wanted to have wickets in hand and we decided to keep our Power Play and Sri Lanka not taking their Power Play really helped us because we knew that in the end with 10 overs of Power Play to bat during, it’s really going to be difficult to control batsmen.

On batting against Malinga: He is a difficult guy to get away, so once you get on top of him you make sure you stay on top. He is one guy they persisted with even when he went for 24 runs in an over because they know he can get them a wicket at any point. I was hitting the ball well and he was bringing it in and that is my natural release shot and probably got the ball in right areas.

On his knock: It has to be the best not the way I batted, but the kind of game we were playing and the kind of situation we were in, chasing 320 in 40 overs.

On what he did in the last few days: I didn’t talk to anyone about cricket. I got a call from home and someone discussed cricket and I hung up. I said please don’t talk about cricket, We were all staying as relaxed as possible because to be honest we had nothing to lose.

On whether his innings was an answer to the critics: Critics are always going to be there. It is more of proving it to yourself. You take the team through, and it’s more for me than silencing the critics. When you are playing in the middle, you don’t think about silencing critics.

On the Australian press mocking the Indian team for appealing for David Hussey’s run out: It was evident to the naked eye that that’s not on. That’s not in the spirit of the game. Why shouldn’t we appeal for something that’s wrong?

It’s in the rule-book. David Hussey himself claimed a catch which was I could see , wasn’t probably the way it went. He claimed it as well and no one said a thing about it. So one should see themselves before pointing fingers at others and what we did was totally right according to us.

Triangular points table

Teams     Mat    Won    Lost    Tied    Pts    NRR   
 
Australia     7    4    3     0    19    +0.553    
Sri Lanka     7    3    3     1    15    +0.162    
India            8    3    4     1     15    -0.593

Read under: Mat - Matches; Pts - Points; NRR - Net run rate