Ahead of World Cup, Shastri makes big claim on Virat Kohli's captaincy; speaks about Jadhav's injury

With the IPL over, the focus now shifts to the upcoming cricket World Cup and India head coach Ravi Shastri believes that the Men-in-blue squad is a strong one. According to him, it has all the bases covered and is capable of going all the way to clinch the title in England. He also revealed that he and captain Virat Kohli can only give suggestions to the selection committee and then step away.

Kedar Jadhav, who was named in the 15-member World Cup squad, picked up an injury during the IPL, but Shastri is not losing his sleep too much over this incident.

"It doesn't worry me at all. In-fact I am totally blanked out from that. When the flight takes off on the 22nd, we will see who are the 15 on that. Yeah? And just take it from there," Shastri told Cricketnext.

Conditions in England depend upon the weather

Speaking about the conditions in England, Shastri said that a lot depended on the overhead conditions and whether or not, there is a cloud cover as it could dictate the outcome at the toss and eventually, the match.

"In England weather conditions play a huge part, you know when the sun is out early and it is a good forecast for the day, you want to bat first. But yet again on a given day, you wake up in Leeds and it's overcast and cloudy and the last thing you would want to do is bat first there for a 10-10:30 start, the ball could swing for the first couple of hours," he further addded.

Speaking about the number 4 slot, the coach said that it is not a big issue at all as he believes the batting order is quite flexible and it all depends on the situation of the match and conditions at hand.

After a tough start to the year, both Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul found form in the IPL and this augurs well for the Indian side. Shastri said that he always believed that both the players would bounce back strongly after running into controversy.

"See, you learn from your mistakes, you learn from adversities. And I said at that time, they'll comeback tougher, stronger and wiser and I can see that with both of them," he said.

Speaking about the growth of Virat Kohli as a skipper, the former all-rounder said that there has been an improvement and that he will keep improving always as he is only 30 and there is always room to learn more down the road.

"You know when you talk of Test cricket, that's the ultimate format of the game and if you see the way he has evolved in the last 5 years, across all formats, you know there is still room for improvement. He knows that, he's only 30. He's got another, barring any injury, I would say 7-8 years easily. So, you are bound to mature," the coach said.