Shankar close to playing a defining knock: Kohli

Virat Kohli has thrown his weight behind M S Dhoni and Vijay Shankar who have come under criticism for their batting. While Shankar has been pilloried for not being able to convert his starts, Dhoni has been singled out for his inability to rotate strike this slowing down the scoring rate.

“I think I've said it after the last game as well, he knows exactly what he needs to do,” said Kohli when asked about former cricketers criticising Dhoni. “I don't think that he's ever been a cricketer that's ever had the need to be told what exactly he needs to do. Look, again, as I said, it's a lot of things happen on the outside. What we experience and what we know inside the change room is the most important thing to us, and we have total belief in him, and he stood up for the team many times, especially if you look at this calendar year and the kind of performances he's given. I don't think it's fair to point out one or two performances which anyone can falter with the bat.

“We're not looking too much into it. He knows exactly what he needs to do. After the last game, he went into the nets. He worked hard. He put in a performance and got us to a winning total, and we won the game. We got two points. We're very, very happy and comfortable with, as I said, where we stand as a team and how the batting is going at the moment,” he observed.

The Indian skipper also backed Shankar to come good with the bat while emphasising that the right-hander had looked “really solid” in whatever he did.

“You know, it's a strange one because he had a decent game against Pakistan,” he said when asked if Shankar needed to do something different at No 4. “I think against Afghanistan on that pitch he looked really assured. Shot selection, again, we discussed with him for that game. Last game, again, he came out, he looked really good, and he gets a beautiful ball from Kemar Roach. So you can't really sit down and pinpoint things, but I personally felt he looked really solid. There's not much that needs to be tinkered (with). Sometimes in cricket you just need a bit of luck to get over from 30 to 60, and then you play a defining knock for the team. He's very close to that, and we're very confident he's going to end up playing that kind of knock for us,” he offered.