New Test captain Virat Kohli on Tuesday laid out his ambitious vision for the Indian team, saying he wants to create a side which can dominate world cricket for the next five years at least.
Kohli, who was handed the Test captaincy after Mahendra Singh Dhoni retired following the third Test of the four-match series against Australia in January, said he wants to create strong friendship in the team.
“I strongly want to see the Indian team dominate for at least five or six years,” Kohli told ESPNcricinfo’s digital magazine in an interview which will be published tomorrow on the Cricket Monthly site.
“We certainly have the talent. We certainly have the ability. All that it will take is how you manage that and keep them together,” he added.
Laying down his vision for the side, Kohli said: “I want to create strong bonds. I want to create strong friendships in this unit.
“We live 250-280 days a year together so I want to create such an atmosphere where in the next ten years watching it from outside you would get to know this team is a united team.
This team is a strongly knit unit. They want to play for each other. They don’t want to play for themselves. That is my vision.”
A firm believer in playing aggressive cricket, Kohli said he wants to free his team of doubts or insecurities.
“We like playing the same brand of cricket,” Kohli said of the team he resumes taking charge of with the tour to Bangladesh later this month.
“The thing that I want to do and I can do in Test matches is free them from any kind of doubt. Free them from any kind of insecurity... On the field if you see them (Australia) play you feel like, damn, that’s a unit, we really have to play our bloody best to beat these guys. I want that to happen to Indian cricket.
“In Test matches we want to be the team to beat. It is just the mindset, sometimes we tend to go into that zone where the thinking is not right,” he said.
Talking about self-belief, Kohli said: “Not many people understand the kind of things I have seen in life at a very young age. Maybe that is why I believe in myself a lot. I think if I did not have belief, I would not be able to build my career all these years.
“If you look at Shastri’s performance, how do you find a fault with it? A young team fought well in Australia, won the ODI series in England and reached the semifinals in the World Cup. They had one bad day against Australia which unfortunately was the semifinal. As an astute cricket brain, he stands up alongside anyone in India,” the source added.
A member of the Indian team’s erstwhile support staff had said during the World Cup that Shastri’s one-on-one sessions with Shikhar Dhawan changed it all for the left-hander during the World Cup.
Even Kohli has said about how a technical change suggested by Shastri helped score those bagful of runs in Australia that had a whopping four Test tons.
“He is the one who suggested I stand in front of the crease and on off stump. I was not convinced to begin with. I was thinking in my head that it might expose my stumps. He said just trust me, do it. I did not do it in England. But I went to Australia and I thought about it,” Kohli said.
Even though Shastri has agreed to accompany the team to Bangladesh in the same capacity, it is there to be seen as to how Jagmohan Dalmiya and Anurag Thakur deal with him if he asks for a longer rope in order to build a solid unit and the kind of working relationship he shares with the Cricket Advisory Panel.
