We must forget pressure from home and focus on game, says Kohli
Virat Kohli will tell his team to be neither arrogant nor “intimidated” in today’s Champions Trophy final at the Kia Oval which will bring the subcontinent to a standstill.
The match will be decided by which team handle the pressure most calmly, and India’s track record suggests they have the coolest heads. Their record is 13 wins and two defeats against Pakistan in global tournaments including the World Cup semi-final in Mohali in 2011, the last time the two sides met in a knockout match.
Mohammad Amir is fit for Pakistan after missing the semi-final against England with a back spasm and India will be unchanged from the team who gave Bangladesh a hiding to reach the final.
A red-hot day in London and a flat pitch promise to make this a high-scoring final, with India’s batting princes pitted against Pakistan’s reverse-swing specialists.
“Neither are we too intimidated nor are we too arrogant about what we are doing. It’s important to maintain the balance of being confident in your own skill and what you are doing as a team,” said Kohli, the India captain.
“I know there are expectations. I know there are people that expect the team and myself to do well every time that we play, but I understand as a player and as a person that it’s not possible, so it’s very important to realise the things that might or might not happen in the game, and you have to be close to reality. You can’t end up thinking [about] what people are expecting back home. You have to focus on what you have to do on the field.
“This is a part of being an Indian cricketer. You have to find a way to deal with it. You can’t ignore it. I think I’ve been able to strike a good balance until now, and yeah, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Pakistan froze in their opening match of the tournament against India. They were bowled out for 164 and have not beaten their rivals in a global tournament in eight years.
Meetings between the sides in bilateral series are rare and the next one is unknown with political tensions between the countries tense. It has led to Pakistan demanding compensation from the Board of Control for Cricket in India for lost television revenue for the failure to fulfil fixtures but it is different in global tournaments, with the International Cricket Council admitting to fixing the draws to ensure a Pakistan-India tie for their broadcasters to milk. Reports in India suggest the rate for television adverts today will be about 10 million rupees per 30 seconds (around £125,000), 10 times the usual cost.
Mickey Arthur, the Pakistan coach, says he has learnt from the first game in the tournament and has tried to be more relaxed this time despite what is at stake. Pakistan’s only global ODI tournament win was 25 years ago when Imran Khan’s tigers beat England in the World Cup final. Imran tweeted the team a good-luck message to his 5.5 million followers.
“The guys are under no illusion as to what the expectation is on them, but they’re genuinely excited. I said before the Edgbaston game, I thought they were really, really calm, but they’re very, very excited now, and there’s a hell of a good vibe in that dressing room,” said Arthur. “Let’s hope we can put our ‘A’ game out again, because if we can, and I said it before the England game, if we put our ‘A’ game together and do the basics well, we can beat anybody.
“We dissected India a lot before the game at Edgbaston, and we’ve sort of backtracked a little bit on that now and are sort of solidifying what we did really well, confirming what we’ve done well in terms of our bowling, our batting, our fielding, and building on that. So the final is going to be about us rather than the opposition, and we’ve made the focus us as a team.”
The final will be played on a fresh pitch and the match was sold out months ago.