Virat Kohli is immensely popular in Australia because of his feisty character and classy batting.
The Indian skipper stole the headlines when Australia legend and former India coach Greg Chappell recently termed him the “most Australian non-Australian cricketer of all time."
True to his nature, Kohli neither played it down nor revelled in it when asked to respond to the observation at a virtual media interaction on the eve of the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Adelaide.
“Firstly I would like to say that I have always been myself. The way my personality and character is, I think it is a representation of the new India. And for me that’s how I look at it. It’s not as such in my mind a comparison to me being similar to the Australian mindset or anything like that,” Kohli said.
“For me, it’s how we have started to stand up as the Indian cricket team. And my personality has always been this way from day one. This for me is a representation of the new India where we want to take on challenges and move forward with optimism and positivity and make sure we are up and ready for any challenge that comes our way.”
Kohli will return to India after the floodlit Test for the birth of his first child. But he has backed his deputy Ajinkya Rahane to step up to the challenge of taking over the reigns.
Tremendous job
“I am sure he will do a tremendous job in my absence. But [my] focus till the time I am here remains on providing captaincy, leadership and performances as a player to the best of my abilities and from there I am pretty confident that Jinks (Rahane) will do a tremendous job.
Time to step up
“I have said this before... I feel like this is his time to really step up and perform strongly as an individual and then captain as well," Kohli said.
“We have had a lot of mutual understanding and respect over the years. We have had great partnerships batting together, which is based on trust and understanding of what is needed for the team.
Jinks has done a tremendous job in the two practice games. He seems to be very composed and he knows the strengths of our team and how we need to go about things.”
