The Sunday Mail
Virat Kohli has said he is not a player who hits the ball in the air to entertain the crowd. Rather, he wants to do his job and win matches for the country.
Kohli, who struck a career-best 94 not out off 50 balls in India’s six-wicket win over the West Indies in the first T20I, said he does not want to play slam-bang cricket, even in the game’s shortest format.
“Whenever I play T20 cricket, I am not someone who comes to the ground to hit the ball in the air to entertain the crowd. I focus on doing the job. Our strength as a team is to strike in the latter half of the innings,” Kohli said after the match.
“I don’t want to change my game too much because I play all three formats. I just want to contribute in all three formats, that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to be a format specialist.”
The India captain stamped his class along with KL Rahul, who struck an impressive 62 off just 40 balls to help India chase down the target of 208 with eight balls to spare.
The previous highest successful run chase for India in a T20I was the 207 against Sri Lanka in Mohali in 2009.
The win means India takes a 1-0 lead in the three-match series, with the second T20I slated for this morning.
Kohli hit six fours and as many sixes during his innings and after hitting Kesrick Williams for a six in the 16th over, the fired up Indian captain also used his bat as an imaginary notebook to “tick” the bowler’s name off.
Kohli later said he remembered Williams doing the same thing in Jamaica when the Indian team was there for a tour.
“It happened to me in Jamaica when he got me out. So I thought I will tick a few in the notebook as well, but all good. There were a few words, but smiles in the end,” Kohli said.
“That’s what you want to see. Good competitive cricket, but in the end handshakes and high-fives. That’s what cricket is all about. Play it hard, but have respect for opponents.”
West Indies captain Kieron Pollard said his side did not execute the plans properly.
“A total of 208 to defend, on any day you would take that 10 out of 10 times.
Where we lost the game was the extras and our bowling. Our execution was poor. If we had executed the plans we had spoken about, despite the good batting wicket, it would have been a different scenario,” he said.
“There are two areas in any game, and the guys were exceptional with the bat. There are a lot of positives to take from this game. (Shimron) Hetmyer and (Evin) Lewis got back among the runs and that was quite satisfying, but we need to do the all-round basics right,” said the Windies skipper.
Hetmyer made 56 off 41 balls, which was studded with two boundaries and four hits over the fence to hold the West Indies from one end after being sent into bat.
He first added 37 runs with Brandon King (31 off 23 balls) and then shared 71 runs with Pollard (37 off 19 balls) to lay the base for the West Indies total. – Telegraphindia
