India captain Virat Kohli is well aware that New Zealand bowlers can pose a serious threat to his batters; hence, his batting lineup needs to be motivated to counter the attack when they take on the Black Caps in Dubai on Sunday (October 31) in the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.
On Saturday, October 30, New Zealand pacer Trent Bould has already sent a warning to Team India by announcing that he will try to replicate what Shaheen Afridi did against the 'Men in Blue' in their second game in Dubai in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
Ahead of the T20 World Cup clash with New Zealand on Sunday, Kohli said that the Indian batters need to be motivated and put pressure on Boult to counter his swing.
Read Also: T20 World Cup 2021: Trent Boult hopes to mirror what Shaheen Afridi did against India
Kohli said during a virtual pre-match press conference on Saturday: “We obviously will come up against some quality bowlers in this competition and the intensity which this tournament operates at is very different. So we know that we have played against these individuals, it is not something out of the ordinary that is going to come our way.”
He added, “It all depends on how we take the field mentally and how we counter it if Trent says he wants to replicate what Shaheen did against us then he is motivated to do so and we need to be motivated to put pressure on him and counter that. That is how the game goes, we understand what we need to do. Not thinking about other scenarios is the key to batting in pressure situations.”
The skipper also opened up about Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s form. He said: “I do not want to single out any individual. As a bowling group, we failed to take wickets and we understand that can happen in the sport. It is not a guarantee that every time you take the field, you would not be able to pick a wicket.”
Kohli continued, “These are the same guys who have done the job for us, we understand where it went wrong against Pakistan. We were outplayed and you need to accept that as a professional cricket team, without any excuses and we will give no excuses going ahead. I am going to single out any individual, we lost as a team.”
On the dependency on Jasprit Bumrah, the skipper said: “Jasprit is the best all-format bowler in the world, precisely the reason why there is so much expectation from him. He takes a lot of pride in that, we are not bothered about how much expectation he takes, on the outside it does not matter. All the bowlers were are confident are good enough to take wickets.”
He also admitted that the toss is becoming a big factor in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 in the UAE. Kohli said, “Yeah, it will continue to be a big factor and that is the nature of the tournament. You can look at the situation in two ways, you can bank too much on the toss and you can challenge yourselves as a team that even if you lose the toss, you are good enough to bowl or bat at any situation.”
He signed off by saying, “Two-three overs can change the course of the game, for us, our only focus is how those eleven individuals are placed mentally. It has been a long break for us, we have waited a long time and we are just itching to go out on the park.”
(With ANI Inputs)
