Shouldn’t get too caught up with Kohli: Taylor
NAPIER: New Zealand’s seniormost batsman Ross Taylor on Monday urged his team to focus on the Indian top-order rather than “get caught up” with runmachine Virat Kohli during the upcoming limited overs series.
The tour starts on Wednesday with the first ODI here. India will be playing five One-dayers and three T20 Internationals against the Black Caps.
Entering the Test series worried about how to decode Kohli, the Australians recently learnt it the hard way as Cheteshwar Pujara stole the thunder Down Under, helping his team to an epic triumph. Taylor doesn’t want his team to follow a similar approach.
“He’s (Kohli) a sensational player, the best one-day player going around, easily. It’s easy to get caught up in him. You’ve got two pretty good openers at the top, Sharma and Dhawan, before he gets in,” Taylor was quoted as saying by stuff.co.nz.
Taylor had his first net session at the Mclean Park after his finger injury during the home series against Sri Lanka.
While Kohli averages a staggering 113 in ODIS in 2018, Taylor’s average is 92 in the same period across 13 ODIS.
“I’ve played a few internationals now and understand my role in the team. I’ve worked on my game and try and rotate the strike early and be as busy as I can. Different shots against spinners at different stages have maybe evolved my game in a positive way,” Taylor said.
“But you’re still human and you still have to start again, and it’s exciting against India.” DUBAI: A maiden Test series triumph in Australia saw both the Indian team and its skipper Virat Kohli consolidate their respective pole positions in the latest ICC Test rankings released on Monday.
India, with 116 points, stayed as the No 1 ranked Test team while skipper Kohli (922 points) was 25 points clear of secondranked New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson (897).
Cheteshwar Pujara after his dream series Down Under is ranked third among the batsmen while young turk Rishabh Pant has entered the top 20 with a career-best 17th rank.
In the bowler’s list Kagiso Rabada still topped the chart while Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja are the best-ranked Indians at fifth and ninth place respectively.
Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah has climbed to 15th spot with 711 points.
England will have to win their upcoming three-match series against the West Indies starting on Wednesday in order to retain third position in the rankings while Australia and Sri Lanka will vie for important points in their two-match series starting a day later.