India team captain Virat Kohli on Thursday defended the team’s number of five positions in the T20I rankings, saying that the Men in Blue haven’t fielded with their strongest XI in recent times and therefore their low position in the ICC table cannot be considered.
From Next year’s World, T20 will be in sight, India is giving chances to youngsters to build a strong pool of players from which they can eventually select the final squad for the prestigious tournaments. The team has also been focusing on defending totals an area where they haven’t been able to perform that well in the shortest format of the game.
“We have to focus on batting first and also defending low totals. Those are two things that we have to focus on. T20 is a format where you can experiment a lot more than ODIs and Tests,” Kohli said to reporters in the press meet ahead of the first T20I against the West Indies.
“You want to give chances to the youngsters in the shortest format, we have not played the strongest eleven together in T20Is so rankings cannot be considered. “We have the mindset that we will not focus on the rankings. Now heading into the T20 World Cup, we need to take our best team to the field, we would probably be playing our strongest eleven going into the World Cup,” he added.
“I have come back into the side so it is my responsibility to take control of the middle-order. One individual needs to bat long and others need to play with a good strike-rate. Batting positions don’t matter in the shortest format, it is just about getting the job done,” Kohli told.
Virat Kohli is also impressed with the spin-bowling options in the form of Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravindra Jadeja he has at his discarding. “Having two wrist spinners is a big advantage when you are playing in Australia as they have big fields,” Kohli said about ‘KulCha’.
“You need to have six bowling options in T20 cricket, I think that is the balance we need to create, there can be an opportunity to play two wrist spinners, but we need to find a way to work around that.
“Jadeja is in his best phase as an all-rounder, we are happy with how our options are placed. T20 cricket is all about being flexible,” he added.
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