Virat Kohli missed Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam Tests due to personal reasons.
England’s senior batter, Joe Root, said that his team would be pleased to keep both Indian legends Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma quiet throughout the ongoing five-match Test series.
Virat Kohli’s return remains uncertain, and Indian skipper Rohit has been struggling for runs in the ongoing Test series against England. But Root revealed that the England cricket team is ready for Kohli's potential return, and they have plans for Rohit as well.
Notably, Kohli missed the first two Tests in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam due to personal reasons, and it's still unclear if he will join the Indian cricket team for the remaining three Tests. On the other hand, Rohit hasn't performed at his best in the series so far, amassing only 89 runs in four innings.
Joe Root said on Jio Cinema: “You mentioned two of the greats (Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli) of the modern era. Of course, there’s going to be focus. We know how good they are and they are also very senior within this current Indian batting lineup.”
The England batter continued, “So, clearly they’ve got a big role to play within this Test team. You want to make sure that you try and get on top of them early. They’ve got the ability to get big scores and we’ve been on the wrong end of that a few times, so it would be nice to try and keep them as quiet as we can throughout the series.”
Root also revealed that there are no team meetings in the England camp for any particular player of the opposition and they will continue with their famous Bazball approach in the remaining games.
The former England captain noted, “We don’t really do team meetings anymore. That’s one of the great things about how we do all of our conversations away from the game and just that enjoyment and buzz about spending time with each other. We don’t have to sit in a meeting room and I think it’s more authentic and more genuine when you can have it around a dinner table. Having a coffee in the morning or whatever, I think that’s when you do your best learning.”
Root signed off by saying, “Regardless, of the result of the game, we’re always going to play how we know. It’s what’s given us success for a good period of time now. It’s what brings the best out of us. We’ve been in similar situations before. The last time we played India in England, in that one-off Test, we were miles behind in the game and we managed to chase that score down. There have been numerous other occasions where we've done things that we never thought we could have done before. So, we'll never stop believing, we'll never feel like we're out of the game.”
Root and the rest of the England cricketers are currently in Abu Dhabi enjoying some time off the game. They will return to India before the third Test in Rajkot on February 15.
(With Jio Cinema Inputs)