Kohli relishing the challenge
Kohli relishing the challenge
When India begin their 13th Asia Cup campaign with the game against Bangladesh on February 26 in Fatullah, it will probably be the first time that the five-time champions will not start the tournament as favourites. It is not so because the other sides have done exceedingly well in the recent past, but because their own performance has been pretty poor of late. The All Blues have come to Dhaka on the back of two series defeats (0-4 against New Zealand and 0-2 against South Africa) and their last win in an ODI dates back to November 2013 at home against the West Indies.
To make matters worse, their inspirational skipper MS Dhoni has been ruled out due to a side-strain, which has thrust the responsibility on the young but broad shoulders of Virat Kohli. Pundits see Kohli as the ideal man to take over the baton of success from Dhoni and the 25-year old batsman, who has led the side in eight ODIs so far winning seven of those, sees this as a big opportunity to prove his credentials.
“He (Dhoni) has been a very important player for us in the past few years and he has led the team very well. But him not being there is a big chance for us as well,” said Kohli during a pre-tournament press briefing at a city hotel yesterday.
“It's a big tournament, my first tournament as a captain and it's a challenge which I am looking forward to. I have got a young group of guys, who are exciting players which excites me. I hope I can keep up the good record that I have held in the matches I have captained so far,” said Kohli.
Kohli's teammates will have the assurance of having a man at the helm who undoubtedly will lead from the front when it comes to scoring runs. Kohli knows the wickets in Bangladesh like the back of his hand as he was the leading run-scorer, by a big margin too, in the last Asia Cup held in Dhaka in 2012. In that tournament, Kohli scored 357 runs in three matches with two centuries including a mammoth innings of 183 runs against arch-rivals Pakistan.
The latest poster-boy of Indian cricket knows that they are not in great form, but he is prepared to pounce on the poor form of their first-match opponents Bangladesh, who had beaten them in their last meeting.
“We lost to Bangladesh and got out of the tournament last time, but that's how it goes in the tournament. We didn't have a great tour of New Zealand, but they too had a bad series (against Sri Lanka). You need one good performance from the boys and the momentum is suddenly with you. I think it's a great chance when people think that we aren't in the best of forms and it is a challenge which we would like to relish,” said Kohli.