Indian captain Virat Kohli threw his support behind the player rotation policy adopted by quite a few countries. He said, in a virtual press conference ahead of the fourth Test against England in Ahmedabad, that rotation policy is the way forward to avoid mental fatigue in the age of bio-bubbles.
Kohli is convinced that as long as players are staying in bio-secure environments, taking intermittent breaks is not a bad idea. England has been adopting a similar policy on their tour of India but has been criticized by many former cricketers like Kevin Pietersen and others.
"The kind of systems you have to follow in the bubble, it can get very monotonous and it is very difficult to keep yourself excited about small things," Kohli said on the eve of the fourth Test against England.
"I feel any format of the game is the right place for rotation. No human being can possibly go on for that many numbers of games throughout the year. Everyone needs to find windows of having some time off.
These are the things that need to be considered for as long as you play in the bubble, outside of that it depends on where you stand physically more than mentally. But till the bubble exists, we need to keep the mental factor in the picture as well, because mental fatigue would be a huge, huge factor," he said.
However, the Indian captain said that a team needs a solid bench strength to ensure such a rotational policy becomes a success and doesn’t affect the team’s performance at the highest level.
"Our bench strength becomes way more important because if you have guys hungry, ready, who understand where the game is heading and are brave enough to take on opportunities then you can rotate very easily.
There are eleven more guys who are ready to win a Test match for India, or One-day or T20 and that is exactly what we are striving towards, we have a clear road-map as to where we need to go in the next four-five years so that our transition is not difficult at all," he said.
(PTI inputs)
