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Team must create habit of winning: Kohli

Dubai - Indian Test captain Kohli reveals why he always likes to express what he feels

Virat Kohli never shies away from wearing his heart on his sleeve. You can expect that from someone who had the strength of character at the age of 18 to turn up for a domestic match hours after losing his father and save his team from certain defeat with a defiant 90.
Now seven years since that day, Kohli has not only established himself as one of the most feared batsmen, he is also becoming the most perplexing character in the sport.
On one hand, he bewilders everyone with his unbelievable ability to play the most astounding of knocks under pressure and on the other, he often leaves the purists frustrated with his over-the-top on-field aggression.
Kohli has also made it a habit of making his bat talk even after rubbing his opponents the wrong way - sometimes in the middle of a delicately poised Test.
Does he ever feel the weight of his own words? "No. I don't like to relate the two," Kohli told Khaleej Times after being unveiled as a co-owner of the UAE Royals IPTL tennis team in Dubai on Thursday.
"I think it's mentally how you perceive things and if you want to feel pressurized after saying something or putting your thoughts out there and feeling 'what if I am not able to execute them' I think that's where the problem lies.
"I never think in that manner. I always like to express what I feel. I always like to share my thoughts And then I don't relate any kind of pressure to it because when I go out there to bat I have the bat in hand and I have complete control of things that I want to do.
"So these things don't put pressure on me as a player. I think you can control that on a personal level. If you want to connect what have said to how you will play then you will feel the pressure but if you can differentiate the two that has no relation to each other, then you can do well."
Entrusted with the responsibility of leading a Test team in transition, Kohli has a made a promising full series debut as a captain of a young but ambitious bunch of players. An embarrassing batting collapse in the fourth innings of the first Test against Sri Lanka recently failed to dampen the spirit of his team as they came back to win the three Test series in a pretty impressive manner.
"Winning is very important," Kohli said matter-of-factly. "It's very important for the team to create that habit of winning. It gives you the belief that you can win a series as a team. The team will be more confident of doing that more often in future. So I think from that perspective it was a very important win for the whole team and that will boost everybody's confidence going ahead." The five-bowler strategy clearly worked for a relatively inexperienced team against the struggling Sri Lankans, but Kohli is mature enough to realize that it would be foolish to stick to it in every series.
"I think it really depends on who you are playing against and what sort of conditions you are playing in and what the situation demands from the team. It's certainly not a set pattern that we want to stick to at any cost. Things can be spoken about and it can be altered according to the needs of the team," Kohli said.
"What the management, myself and the players feel is the best for the team will be done. So it's certainly not something concrete. It has worked for us against Sri Lanka. We have learned from that but we can obviously adapt to different situations and different oppositions."
The pundits have identified four different young players who could go on to become modern batting legends. Kohli is in that select club of players that includes Ken Williamson, Joe Root and Steve Smith. So has he ever felt the urge to do better than those three?
"No, I have never tried to compete with others. Rivalries are part of an individual sport like tennis. But there is no such thing in a team sport. Yes I know people talk about Messi and Ronaldo in football, but I don't think in any team sport, a player tries to outdo the other one. I think people are playing at a certain level or succeeding at a certain level because they want to improve their own game and focus on their own abilities rather than thinking about what the other person is doing," Kohli said.
"You spoke about Joe Root, Williamson and Smith, I admire all three of them probably because we are from the same age group. I think it's great for the sport in general that people can see players that excite them with the way they play. These three players are certainly taking the sport to another level with their performances. They are setting a benchmark for the upcoming children who want to take up the sport.
"I am sure even they don't look at it as a competition or a rivalry. They are just looking to improve their game. That's exactly how I feel too. And the good thing about them is that people can actually look up to the way those three play the game. They want to become like them. And I think it's great for the sport of cricket."