India vs West Indies 2016: Virat Kohli speaks about his batting position, reveals why he batted at No.3
After clinching an unassailable lead in the ongoing Test series against West Indies, India Test skipper Virat Kohli explained the changes that were made to the side and also spoke about his batting position. India defeated West Indies by a massive 237 runs in the third Test match in Gros Islet on Saturday to take an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the series.
India had made three changes coming into the game and did struggle quite a lot in their first innings when they were reduced to 130/5. But the changes worked just fine as things came together on day five.
”Very few people like change. This team doesn't think how others would react or what they might say. We put out a combination that's best according to the pitch. When I came at No.3 many people asked why I did it, but I am not fixated by my batting spot," Kohli said.
“If the team needs, I can open the batting too because that's the rule applicable to everyone in the team. To field a player like Rohit Sharma we had to make him bat at No.5. To make that happen the other players will go one place up the order. That's what we did.”
Kohli reveals why Kumar was brought in
The Indian skipper also spoke of the bowling choices in the game. "In bowling we replaced Umesh Yadav with Bhuvi because we felt that since the ground is so good it would be easier to maintain the shine on the ball. The pitch was also hard so there was carry. Bhuvi gave us the results, gave us breakthroughs with the second new ball,” he said.
"If you make three changes you might feel that it might to be too strong a reaction. But we realised that if we have to seal the series here then we had to make changes according to the conditions.”
The talismanic Indian top-order batsman heaped praises on his seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar who picked a five-for in the first innings and also lauded the efforts of Wriddhiman Saha and Ravichandran Ashwin who got to a century each.
”Bhuvneshwar Kumar was amazing in the afternoon, and picking up 5 wickets for 28 runs on that pitch in 24 overs was a great spell. That really changed things around for us. Not to forget the first innings, where the way Wriddhiman Saha and R Ashwin batted was really top class Test cricket as well," he said.
Also Read: India vs West Indies 2016: We've been inconsistent for a number of years, says Jason Holder
The 27-year-old also complimented the team for rising up to the challenge as rain had washed off a day just like in Jamaica.
”Individually people have to stand up and show character. You will not be able to execute all the time but the intent and what you think about the game is very important. Someone like Bhuvi coming in, he thought about this as an opportunity rather than a pressure situation of having to perform. If everyone can stay in that mind set it's obviously good for the team and that is the only way you can execute what you want," he said.
"The team is really happy that we could execute our plans and wrap up the series here. Now we can play with more positive intent in Trinidad and express ourselves fully and understand the areas we still need to improve on,” Kohli said after the victory.
”The team is feeling really good, especially because we didn't have a day of play in Jamaica and fifth day was really testing for us. We didn't get the result we wanted. Here also we played two good days of Test cricket, then lost day 3, but again on day 4 bowlers came back and executed what we wanted to.”