As Virat Kohli prepared to embark on his first tour – a one-off Test in Bangladesh – as the official full-time captain of Indian Test team, he bristled with positivity and intent.
Staying consistent with his tone in Australia – where he took over mid-series from MS Dhoni – Kohli stressed on the importance of winning Test matches overseas rather than just finding positives from losses and draws.
“I think we have learnt a lot. I don’t really think we have to play with the mindset of wanting to keep learning all the time,” Virat said. “We have played enough Test matches that we start executing our skills and getting results our way.”
“We need to have the vision and focus to actually win Test matches and not just play with the mindset of learning with every game.”
“You can learn about the game every day watching on TV as well. We have been playing it for long enough now. Unless we want to have a vision of winning Test matches and executing our skills against the best in the world, we are falling short of the goal we want to achieve.”
“We have learnt a lot in the past Test matches and months but starting now, we really want to start achieving those results and not go away from every Test match thinking what we have learnt from it,” Kohli said.
To achieve the goal of winning more Test matches, Kohli said it was imperative that his players combine the highest level of fitness with their cricketing skills.
“Fitness is an area we need to strengthen, so that there are less injuries and we can play similar set of players to build a match-winning combination in Test cricket,” Kohli added.
“If we strengthen fitness in six to eight months from now, it will help us three-four years in the future with guys coming through tough phases of Test cricket because they’re up there with the fitness level and skill level as well.”
“It has to be a combination of both, and that is what we primarily want to focus on. We feel that we can improve on and it is most definitely the need of the hour in Test cricket.”
As India’s new Test captain, the first agenda on Kohli’s mind, however, is to build an atmosphere of security and faith in the team.
“We want to create an environment firstly where players feel they are here to stay for a while. They feel confident about their abilities,” he said.
“We have plans and ambitions and goals that we want to achieve, but it will happen one step at a time. Yesterday was a small step towards it. Today we start practising, then we have the Test in Bangladesh and from there we have a big home season,” he said.
By: BCCI
