Defending an underfire Virat Kohli, Indian cricket Team Director Ravi Shastri on Tuesday said the swashbuckling batsman’s ordinary run in the World Cup had nothing to do with his actress-girlfriend Anushka Sharma’s presence and dismissed it as “utter nonsense”.
“If it was so, Virat wouldn’t have got 700 runs and smashed four centuries in Tests in Australia. His work ethic is as good as any I have seen. His heart beats for India. It’s a pedigree you don’t see often. And to tell you the truth, he isn’t a finished article yet,” said Shastri.
Shastri found much to praise in Kohli’s revival after a disastrous England tour last year when he constantly fell to Jimmy Anderson and company.
Kohli showed that, “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters. It’s the fight in the dog that counts,” Shastri said.
Shastri also lavished praise on skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni saying that the wicketkeeper-batsman would only get better from here on.
“He will only get better now that he has retired from Test cricket. He will be fitter and have time to work on his batting. He will still have a lot of time to torture bowlers around the world,” he said.
Shastri, a former India captain, said losing the toss in the semifinal against Australia hurt the Indian team.
While praising the eventual champion and terming it as “the best side in the tournament”, Shastri still believes that the only team which Australia feared could beat it was India. Steve Smith was a constant thorn in India’s flesh and Shastri had words of praise for the young Australia batsman.
“A lot of teams asked me for weakness in his game. They asked us as we (Indians) ought to know since we have been here for four months. My answer always was: ‘let me know his weakness in case you find it’.
“He has tremendous hand-eye coordination, a very sharp cricketing brain and he invariably finds gaps in the field,” Shastri said. One highlight of India’s performance was its medium-pace trio of Umesh Yadav, Mohammad Shami and Mohit Sharma.
“I call Shami ‘Nawab of Kolkata’; Umesh ‘the one of Vidarbha’ and Mohit Sharma ‘Haryana Express faster than Rajdhani’. They bowled like fast bowlers,” he said.
“The Indian medium-pace trio was as good as any in this competition. How many times have you seen a Hashim Amla or a Younis Khan ducking into a short ball and fending a catch to fielders inside the circle? They bowled with the mindset of a fast bowler,” he said.
Shastri was also all praise for Ravichandran Ashwin who was prepared to give the ball air even when the rules restricted protection for him in the deep.
“His variation of pace was the key,” Shastri said.
Shastri said there was immense potential in this young Indian team and predicted that 80 per cent of this nucleus would still be around in four years’ time, in the 2019 World Cup. “People don’t realise this tour of Australia has done their confidence a world of good. It will keep them, and India, in good stead.”
