JOIN USVirat Kohli has been the focus in the build-up to the four-Test series against Australia. Many of the Australians have been effusive in his praise and have spoken against sledging him on the field, explaining how it can be counter-productive. The man himself, however, remains unaffected by all the attention on him and talks about his plan to go about his job.
Excerpts from his press conference.
On Aussie players’ (David Warner, Glenn Maxwell…) views about him: See, I am really good friends with them. I know them really well off the field. But I know where to draw the line of friendship as well. When you step onto the field, I could be playing against my real brother but it does not matter. So it's fine, if they had to criticise me, I would have been okay with it, it's not something coming out of my mouth. I am pretty focussed and aware of what I need to do as a player on the field and what my team needs to do to win Test matches and series.
On whether this is the most challenging series: Every match and series for us is challenging we don’t see any series as high or low. All teams we had played were good quality teams. Australia is no different. We are not treating this series any different from others in the past. England was a very tough series. We started off with a draw but it was not a convincing effort from our side. From there on, we turned things around. That took a lot of character and the team is in a different mind space ever since that first game in Rajkot.
On Australia possibly playing three spinners: We are not worried about the opposition’s combinations. We are pretty comfortable with what we want to do, we are pretty sure about how we want to go about this game and the series. That’s our strength and not focusing on the opposition too much. We are aware of their skills, but that doesn’t mean we will wait for the opposition to come out with their eleven and decide how we are going to play. We have prepared ourselves in a certain way and are in a good head-space going into the series.