India skipper Virat Kohli on Saturday attributed the team’s stupendous success in recent times to the team management’s decision to pick format-specific players.
The decision to persist with wrist spinners like Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal has proved to be beneficial for the team since the start of the Sri Lanka series.
“It has not only been a combined effort of the players but also the management group, which has given great ideas. Picking specialist players for formats, picking mystery bowlers (Kuldeep), giving them confidence. They can give runs in one game, but they will always hit back,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
He praised his new ball bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah.
“Bhuvi and Bumrah have been brilliant in limited-overs lately. You need to be able to execute yorkers and slower balls and you need the skill. But you need to have a good head as well, make batsmen hit the wrong areas.”
The skipper is also happy that Shikhar Dhawan is back after a short break due to his wife’s illness.
“It was unfortunate for Dhawan to miss out on so many games but he is back and even this innings of 15 will give him confidence.”
Kohli also said that he thought after restricting Australia to 118 for eight, the D/L par score would have been less than 40.
“We don’t really understand the Duckworth Lewis method. After getting them down to 118, we thought it would only be 40 or something. 48 was tricky,” Kohli said.
Kuldeep was happy with his maiden Man of the Match award.
He was happy that he could understand Aaron Finch’s intentions and bowl accordingly.
“The first couple of balls, I saw what he was doing, later on I set him up for the sweep shot. So I knew he wasn’t going to hit me over mid-off, so I planned that overpitched ball to bowl him.
“I always think about getting wickets and that’s all that matters for me and the team. Getting more confidence day by day, game by game.”
