I have to keep going on as long as my team needs me to: Virat Kohli

If one thing separates great players from others is the consistency with which they are able to perform at the top of their game. While every international cricketer is a match winner on his day, those who do it more often and with more certainty are the ones tagged legends in the cricket fraternity. Indian Test captain Virat Kohli has certainly breached that barrier of being just a player and is flowing towards legend-hood.

He started the season with zero IPL hundreds and Test double centuries to his name and while he scored 4 in the 2016 edition of the IPL, he has already struck as many Test doubles with possibly 9 innings still in hand. Virat in the crease appears to be in a state of flow – the bowler literally tells him where he intends to bowl – no matter how fast the ball is. He has enough time to determine the best shot he wants to play that can get him maximum reward with minimum risk and is able to execute that with utmost subtlety.

Virat played a 204-run knock today against Bangladesh and scored some of the easiest runs we have seen him score in Test cricket. “It’s because of captaincy that you go on more than you usually do as a normal batsman. The room for complacency is no more present when you are the captain. I wanted to play longer innings, my first 7-8 100s were not even 120+ scores. After that I made a conscious effort to bat long, control my excitement and not be complacent,” he said talking to BCCI.tv after the end of the second day.

To be able to achieve what he is achieving he has worked really hard on his fitness. Scoring double tons in the longer format requires as much physical toughness as mental and having failed to do that in the past Virat has prepared himself specifically for the task and the results are for all to see.

Also read- Bowling to Virat was a good experience: Mehedi Hasan

“I have worked on my fitness as well over the years. I feel like I can go on for longer periods now. I don’t feel tired easily, and I definitely don’t get satisfied when I get a Test hundred, which used to be the case before because I used to give too much importance to Test cricket separately. But now I have started to treat it as any other game of cricket, and I have to keep going on as long as my team needs me to”. Virat added.

He doesn’t believe in sweating it out in the nets to keep the momentum on his side, he has things pretty sorted in the head and that is how he has been able to maintain his purple patch for such a long time. The Indian skipper said, “It is more of a mental thing. I don’t necessarily focus on practice and season, because sometimes you don’t get enough time to practice too much, but I think mentally I need to focus – switching to different formats is the need of the hour in today’s cricket and I really want to contribute in all three formats”.

Virat took a DRS call and didn’t take one in this inning – the first was a right decision and he stayed despite the umpire ruling it out when he was batting on 180 – the next he didn’t opt for it when he was again given out lbw on 204. The Mehedi Hasan delivery was pitched outside the off-stump and spun in sharp to beat his bat and hit the pads, the amount of turn it had prompted him that it might as well run down the leg-side.

Explaining the reason behind his decisions the 28-year-old said, “The first one I thought if the ball has spun from under my eyes if I am batting on 180 odd it has to spin a lot for me to miss because I have been connecting all, it wasn’t a lapse in concentration, the ball really spun sharply from in front of my pad. The thinking was that and we had two reviews and if I got out I was going to be the 5th batsman who got out and the others could use one review still.

The second time, he was looking to cut and the ball was a bit too close to be cut. He didn’t connect and the ball rather hit him on the pads and in the process, he also lost his balance. With so much movement he thought it hit him plumb in front and so didn’t want to waste a review.

“The other one I thought I was plumb in front, I was falling back when I got hit and that’s why the umpire couldn’t give it not out either because I wasn’t standing there, I was falling behind. If you look at the real-time replay its plum, the umpires don’t have replays and neither do the players.

“I also felt like I was right in front of the stumps, I didn’t want to use a review that I felt like I was plumb in front because a Saha or a Jadeja or a Ashwin could be nearing a milestone and they could be using a DRS for themselves as well I think the second one to me felt like it was out and that’s why I started walking. No grudges with the umpire either because it happened way too quickly for them to understand the impact where it hit the pads.” Virat said.