India vice-captain Virat Kohli has said the team is banking on building a ‘beautiful momentum’ just as the Class of 2011 had done in winning the ICC Cricket World Cup.
“We got the momentum in the first game and want to carry it forward,” he said, his own 107 against Pakistan at Adelaide sparking that. “Yes, we are looking to hold onto that.”
Expectedly, the supreme confidence he exudes during his brisk walk to the middle at the fall of the first wicket and when he is in the middle was there for all to see when he met the media on the eve of the team’s Group B game against South Africa at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.
“Once you get hold of the momentum, like we did beautifully in the 2011 World Cup, you can see the team looks like a unit when you see it on the field. There’s not an extra effort to prove that to people, but it just is conveyed through watching the game,” Kohli said, declining a suggestion that the team had lowered its intensity levels during the preceding tri-series.
“It’s just that you don’t get that momentum sometimes, and it carries through a particular series or a tournament, and it’s all about how you come back from that. I think the break in between helped us to mentally be fresh again, and intensity was always there, but to create that momentum together as 11 players, it’s very difficult,” he said.
Asked how the team especially those who had been in Australia since the end of November had rediscovered the intensity after tough four Tests and a none-too-memorable tri-series, Kohli said it would have been difficult had the players embarked on the tour thinking of how long they would be in Australia this summer.
“Only yesterday [Friday], Suresh Raina told me that we had completed three months in Australia. Honestly, I did not realise that. I think about the present day and not much else. If one is rooted in the present, it is easier to deal with the challenges. The more thinks about it, the farther one is dragged,” he said.
So how does Kohli recharge himself?
“At a personal level, I can tell you that I don’t think too much. I don’t like to sit around in the hotel room. I like to venture out since being cooped up inside the room isn’t the best for the mindset. I like to go on walks and visit restaurants. I believe that it was important to spend one day at a time,” he said.
Kohli also pointed out that competing at the World Cup was motivation in itself because it comes only once in four years. “All players will be motivated to put in that extra effort at the World Cup. No one can teach you that since it has to come from within. And when a team is able to sustain its rhythm, self-belief can grow,” he said.
