IND vs WI, 1st T20I: Need To Focus On Defending Low Totals, Says Virat Kohli

Kohli on Thursday said that the side needs to focus on batting first and defending totals ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup

Team India may have mastered the art of winning T20I matches while chasing but, somewhere they have been lacking in saving low totals after batting first. The recently concluded series against Bangladesh can be treated as the best example where India lost just one game, that too, while batting first in Delhi. Before that, the same thing happened against South Africa at Bengaluru. As India are set to host West Indies in the three-match T20I series, skipper Virat Kohli on Thursday said that the side needs to focus on batting first and defending totals ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup. “We need to focus on batting first and defending low totals as well. Those are two things that we need to really focus on, T20 is a format where you can experiment a lot more things than ODIs and Tests. You want to give chances to the youngsters in the shortest format, we have not played the strongest eleven together in T20Is so rankings cannot be considered,” Kohli told reporters. “We have the mindset that we will not focus on the rankings. Now heading into the T20 World Cup, we need to take our best team to the field, we would probably be playing our strongest eleven going into the World Cup,” he added. Wicket-keeper batsman Risbah Pant has been facing flak for not making the most of his opportunities. Kohli, however, said that the player needs to be left alone for a while as he has the capability to perform on the big stage. “We certainly believe in Pant's abilities. It is a collective responsibility of everyone to make the player feel comfortable. He needs to left alone, we know he is a match-winner, we have seen in IPL what he can do. If you want him to do well, we need to make him feel that he belongs,” Kohli said. Kohli gave the T20I series against Bangladesh a miss looking at his busy cricket schedule. However, the regular skipper has come back into the side for the shortest format and said that it is his responsibility to control the middle order. India and West Indies are slated to play three T20Is and as many ODIs. The first T20I will be played on December 6 at Hyderabad.