The ICC promotes the first world test final as the “Ultimate Test,” but Indian captain Virat Kohli said that it would not have been a decision on the “best” team format that resulted from the one-off match against New Zealand. Kohli said his team was to treat the final as part of the “quest for excellence” for India. let’s discuss Virat Kohli Aspects On WTC Final
Virat Kohli Aspects On WTC Final
“If you are talking about Test cricket and deciding who is the best Test team in the world on one game over a period of five days, that’s not the reality of the truth,” Kohli said on Thursday during the pre-match media briefing. “It is not going to reflect anything for people who really understand the game and know exactly what has gone on in the last four to five years and how the teams have fared. You can very well look back at history and focus on things that didn’t go your way. At the end of the day, you realise you play sport and you are going to be beaten and you are going to win on a particular day.”
The last ICC tournament India won was the Champions Trophy in 2013, captained by MS Dhoni. India was eliminated in the semi-finals of the 2016 T20 World Cup. They would lose to Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy final a year later. Kane Williamson’s New Zealand defeated India in the 2019 World Cup semi-finals. Kohli, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned by the prospect of winning his first ICC Trophy.
For us, as a team, we have been on a ‘quest for excellence’- Virat Kohli
“If you win this game, cricket does not stop for us. If you lose this game, cricket does not stop for us. Our processes, our mindset is what matters to us the most and we are striving for excellence every day. And we step onto the field every Test match or every game that we play wanting to win. That’s the most you can ask of your players – to stand up in tough situations and keep proving that you belong here and you take a lot of pride in playing for India.
“We have not come here to just play one-off Test. We have come here to play six Tests in the English summer. Our players understand well their strengths and they understand how to utilise those strengths and they will do that during these six Tests.”
“For me this is another Test match that has to be played. These things are very exciting from the outside where there is so much importance and so much other extra stuff that’s attached to one game and it sort of becomes do-and-die”.
“For us as a team we have been on a quest for excellence for a while now,” Kohli said. “And we are going to continue to be on that path regardless of what happens in this game. We have no doubts whatsoever in our abilities and what we can do as a side”.
“As an individual player, look, we won the 2011 World Cup which was a great moment for all of us. But cricket goes on. Just the way life goes on. And you have to treat failure and success the same way, and you have to treat the so-called outstandingly big moments pretty similar to the other moments as well. “So, yes, it is an occasion that has to be enjoyed from our point of view, but it is not different for us or no more important for us than the first Test match that we played together as a young group of players back in the day when we were trying to come up the ranks. So, yes, the mindset remains the same.”
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