We certainly have what it takes to be the best team in the world: Virat Kohli

India’s test skipper Virat Kohli feels that the current team playing under him has all the capability of becoming the best in the world. He states that his team’s time has come now.

He may be right in all sense. India has a big home season where they are scheduled to 13 Tests starting with the first Test against New Zealand tomorrow followed by England and Australia. The team is in a great shape at the moment. Their men look in superb form. On top of it, all visitors have been vulnerable in these sort of playing conditions.

“We believe we certainly have what it takes to be the best team in the world,” he said. “We definitely believe that. One area we have tapped into is belief. It’s something that a lot of young players can lack coming into international cricket. There can be a lot of insecurities: ‘Whether I’ll play in the next game or whether my position is secure or not.’ It’s all about getting them rid of that feeling. When you step onto the pitch, you need to tell yourself, ‘I own this position for the next eight-ten years in Test cricket for India.’

“That’s the only way you can go out there, be confident and express yourself. Express how good you are, and that’s what this team has done. That’s why we’ve been able to win seven-odd Test matches in the last 13 or 14 that we played. [It’s] because we wanted to go out there and play bold cricket and take some risks. More often than not if you’re fearless, the results will fall your way because you’re willing to take that extra risk in the course of the game. I certainly feel that this team has what it takes to be the best.”

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Just like he has done with his batting, Kohli said he wanted his team to become obsessed with preparation so that at crunch time their strength and skill don’t desert them.

“What it requires is sustained concentration, attention to detail, practising the same way every day… You know, doing boring things,” he said. “At this level, you need to be boring if you want to be successful. As simple as that. Your training, your practice, the way you prepare for games should not change. Whoever can do that for a sustained period of time will obviously be a very good side, and this team has the potential to do that.”

While we speak the opposition’s weakness against spin, the Indian batsmen have also been quite lax in their method to counter spin. In the last season, when India beat South Africa 3-0, India struggled against spin themselves. Kohli said work has been done to overcome that.

“To prepare for the 2014-15 season, when the bulk of India’s Tests were to be played overseas, the players had concentrated on how to play fast bowling as best as they could and in doing so they “sort of didn’t pay that much attention to spin.” Kohli admitted as much, but went on to say the same mistake would not be made now.”

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“We have lost a Test match in Sri Lanka because we could not play spin as well as we wanted to,” he said. “But we rectified that. The team wants to improve in that aspect of the game. It is something that we surely need to get stronger at. What has happened is that there was so much being built up about us not being able to play well away from home that we kept focusing on playing fast bowling, and we got really good at it. We countered conditions really well in England, in bursts, in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.

“We sort of didn’t pay that much attention to spin. That was one area we could have worked more on. Now we are putting in more effort, to face the spinners longer in nets and practising small little things by ourselves – someone might sweep, someone might play off the back foot, someone might step out – whatever it is.”

“We are trying to improve that part of our game slowly. If you want to be a champion side, you don’t want to give the opposition any window to get into the game. The good thing is we are playing a lot of Test cricket so on the sidelines we can keep working on that every day and surely that improvement will happen.”