I do need a rest; I am not a robot: Kohli

Since the start of 2016, no one has faced more balls in international cricket than Virat Kohli (4803), and no one has bowled more balls than R Ashwin (7032) and Ravindra Jadeja (6346).

Imagine how much more Ashwin and Jadeja would have had to bowl had they also been limited-overs regulars in this time. Looked at this way, it's clear why India have embarked on a rigorous rotation policy, particularly with their bowlers.

On the eve of the first Test against Sri Lanka in Kolkata, Kohli was at pains to explain why exactly some players needed more rest than others. "Eleven players play the game, but not everyone would have batted 45 overs in the ODI game, or bowled 35 overs in a Test match," he said. "The guys who are doing that regularly are the ones that need to be assessed, because the body takes that much to recover and it needs rest as well.

"People only look at, ' oh everyone has played 40 games.' They don't look at time spent on the crease, the number of runs that have been run between the wickets, the number of overs they have been bowling in difficult conditions: what are the conditions, what were the temperatures like, have the bodies recovered or not?

"I don't think people go into that analysis. From the outside, it looks like, ' why are people asking for rest, everyone has played same number of games.' But not everyone has the same kind of workload in every kind of game you play. People who have major workload, for example [Cheteshwar] Pujara during a Test season, he'll have maximum workload because he'll spend so much time on the crease. His game is built that way.

"You cannot compare that to, say, a counterattacking player, because the workload would have been different. And purely because of the fact that we've built such a strong core team now of 20-25 players, you don't want important players breaking down at important times for the team.