The first step that he is going to take in the process is to make the Indian Test team look different from the way it used to over the last decade -there will be five bowlers playing from now on. He did that against Bangladesh and if anyone thought that Kohli was doing it just because he was playing against a lower ranked side, he is wrong.
"The only way to win a Test match is to get 20 wickets and to do that you need your best five bowlers playing. So that could be a big possibility. We have players like Ashwin, with a batting average of 40, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Harbhajan who can be handy down the order. Yes, the top-six will have to take more responsibility, but if we win Test matches doing that, nothing could be more satisfying," Kohli said on the eve of India's departure to Sri Lanka.
As he spoke of aggression, Kohli referred to Virender Sehwag's match-winning double century against Sri Lanka in 2008 in Galle against an unstoppable Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan. Sehwag tore into the two spinners at a time when India were struggling, setting up an unlikely win.
"I was talking to Rahul bhai about that innings the other day and he said that was the best he has seen Sehwag bat. I am sure the players, me included, will watch that innings during the series on how to play the spinners in Lankan conditions."
It was Sehwag's uncomplicated approach that left a deep impression on Kohli's mind and he wants to follow the lessons learnt as he saw that innings. "I realized that sometimes we take Test cricket a little too seriously and magnify things to a level that we don't need to. Yes, there should be an element of discipline, but there's no need to complicate things too much," Kohli said.
"I was talking to Rahul bhai about that innings the other day and he said that was the best he has seen Sehwag bat," Kohli said on Sehwag's match-winning double century against Sri Lanka in 2008.
India have not won a Test series in Sri Lanka for close to decades and there is an expectation from this team. The skipper plays it down in his own way, going back to the One-day series that he went for in 2008.
"At that point of time we hadn't won an ODI series in Lanka for 25 years, but I didn't know about that. If I had gone into the series thinking about that, I would have played the way I did. It's the same this time around, we are going there to play a style of cricket that we have tried to play over the past few months since Australia. We are not going to change that and if a bit of history happens in the process, that's great."
Kohli knows that post Sri Lanka, people will start judging him as captain. He will start coming under scrutiny, but that's also not something he worried about. "That's for you to judge," he brushes it off. Rather he is more keen to talking about his game and the sweep shot that he is trying to perfect. "Rohit plays the shot well, Vijay does, Ajinkya does, I am probably the only one who doesn't play the sweep. That's one shot I am trying to develop and I am happy with the last few days' preparation," Kohli gave the impression that he is all set for the challenge ahead.
Virat shoots down friction theory: Kohli's comment after the Bangladesh series that he was unhappy with the approach of the team led to speculation about friction in the team. Kohli categorically denied friction, explaining what he meant to say. "There was never any friction. All I had said was that I was not happy with the way we had played, and that includes me, because I was a part of that team. There is a massive difference between the approach of the team and the execution of the approach. I said we haven't been able to execute that we wanted to...The idea of cutting, copying and pasting things out of context is something that is beyond me."
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