It’s players who make me the captain I am: Kohli
HYDERABAD: A believer of the old adage that a captain is only as good as his team, Indian skipper Virat Kohli on Monday lauded his bowlers for their lion-hearted effort on a flat track against a spirited Bangladesh side.
Asked how much has he improved over the 19 Tests that he has captained, Kohli said: “Honestly it is the players that make you the captain that you become. To be very honest, anyone knows how to set fields in the ground, it's just that you have to make sure that you take up the responsibility of keeping the energy of the team up.”
“I look to push myself, throw myself around in the field so that other guys know that they also have to push for a wicket.”
“The bowlers know what they need to do but the fielders within the ring need to support the bowlers. I need to do that first, for the guys to show that energy. I have been able to maintain that and that has been a takeaway from the games that I have been captain so far. Lot of times, you know that there is only so much that you can do as a captain,” Kohli said in the post-match press conference.
Talking about the performance of the fast bowlers, Kohli seemed satisfied.
“Very good. Credit to our bowlers, they were able to get result on this kind of a track. Considering that the wicket was very good to bat on, it took a bit of patience for us to get wickets during Bangladesh first innings. I thought Umesh (Yadav), Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) and Ishant Sharma were brilliant in the first innings but Umesh stood out,” he said.
“In the second innings, all three bowled really well but Ishant stood out. I have said in the post-match that quality of our spinners allows our fast bowlers to attack because of the way spinners bowl and contain runs, the pacers can really attack as soon as it starts reverse swinging.
“I thought today Ishant's spell was really good, he bowled with pace and had to put in effort to take wickets at that stage and he took both the set batsmen out. That was really good for us,” he added.