Virat Kohli was a happy man yesterday, as India romped to a 9 wicket win over the hapless Sri Lankans, pulling them back from 139 for 1 to 219 all out, and then finishing off the job in style, thanks to a scintillating 2nd wicket partnership between Kohli and Dhawan.
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India won the game with more than 21 overs to spare, making a complete mockery of the Sri Lankan attack, which stood helpless against the class of Kohli and Dhawan.
In the post match presentation and the press conference, Kohli made it very clear that the Indian team had started its preparation for the 2019 World Cup, and that every match from now on would be played in a way that would help them find their core group for the mega event.
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“I think we need to start planning for the 2019 World Cup. You have to prepare 24 months in advance. We are taking that as a challenge and look to try out different things,” Kohli said.
We’re going to experiment and embrace that. You can see a lot of changes. All the guys have bought into it. It’s all about what gives us more balance.” he added.
Yuvraj Singh’s exclusion from this series has been spoken about in great detail, as to how it could be the end of the road of Yuvraj’s international career, and Kohli’s comments about ‘huge changes’ in the Indian setup could be a hint towards that.
Kohli had high bouts of appreciation Shikhar Dhawan.
“The last three months have been a great time for Shikhar. The good thing is that he is capitalising on his purple patch. He can win you games with the way he bats and we would be looking to keep him in that zone for as long as we can,” he said.
Speaking about the match, Kohli said that the ball was coming on to the bat ‘like a dream’ under the lights and it helped Shikhar and himself just ease through the chase.
“They got off to a very good start. We thought we’d be chasing something close to 300. It was a brilliant wicket for batting. The ball was coming onto the bat like a dream under lights and Shikhar and I enjoyed batting together.” Virat concluded.
