“Don’t need to focus on booing,” says Virat Kohli on being booed by crowd

Virat Kohli on being booed: The Indian captain was vocal about booing by overseas crowd not affecting him anymore.

After a historic tour of Australia, India will begin their next assignment in a five-match ODI series against New Zealand in New Zealand. The first match will be played tomorrow at Napier.

Speaking during the pre-series press conference, India captain Virat Kohli didn’t wholly rule out the chances of India trying out a ‘few players’ during the upcoming series. The conversation started after Kohli was asked to pick between winning and preparing for ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.

“Winning is always going to be a very important factor. When you are playing for your country, you want to win every game that you play. The main thing is not to be desperate at this stage. There needs to be a good atmosphere in the change room. There needs to be calmness and collective efforts towards just refining ourselves as a team approaching the World Cup,” Kohli was quoted as saying.

Highlighting the importance of being flexible during the World Cup, Kohli said that the team management doesn’t want to look ‘rigid’. “If we need to try a few players here or there just to see how they react to different situations and different positions, we are open to do it as well.

“We don’t want to be too rigid because you have to be flexible in your mind and in your preparation to be able to be competitive in a big tournament like the World Cup,” the 30-year old cricketer said.

Laying emphasis on balance, Kohli said that trying out a few players doesn’t mean that the team won’t play to win. “I think we need a good balance of both. Even if we back a few players to play at some stage, the idea is still to win games and not think of it as an experiment. It’s an honour to play for your country and that should be paramount in everyone’s head,” he added.

Kohli, who is known for his on-field aggression, has often been on the receiving end of being booed by overseas crowd. While he has responded to the crowd on the ground itself in the past, he said that he doesn’t need to feed off those things being the captain of the team.

“Well, that used to happen in the middle phase of my career. It all started in 2014-15 series [in Australia]. So, I used to feed off those things then as I needed to boost myself up. Being the captain of the team now, I really don’t need to focus on those things.

“I don’t necessarily need the crowd to be on my side or against my side as I have to go out there and do my responsibilities whether there is one person or 50,000 people in the ground,” Kohli concluded.