After a convincing series win against West Indies, a satisfied captain of the Indian side, Virat Kohli spoke highly about the young faces and said outlined what he believes will keep Indian cricket on the right track in the near future.
India will take on West Indies in the first of the three ODI matches and the captain does not want to think too far ahead at the 2023 World Cup and instead, focus on keeping Indian cricket right at the top.
"2023 is too far ahead to be honest," said the 30-year-old during the post-match press conference after the third T20I. "You start looking forward to the World Cup and planning for it 12 months prior. Not four years away. I think the priority is to keep Indian cricket at the top. Play consistent cricket, go out there and win games."
'Priority has been consistency'
India have been a consistent ODI unit over the past two years and the skipper alluded to the fact that the focus has always been to play consistent cricket and keep doing the basics right at all time.
"For us, the priority has always been to be one of the most consistent sides in the world and in the last three to four years, I think we've been able to achieve that," he pointed out. "We're the no.2 side in the world and there's a good reason to that. We've been at no.1 as well sometime. It's the kind of cricket that we've played that has gotten us up here."
India had made as many as three changes for the final T20I match after having sealed the series in Florida and the captain was extremely pleased that the young faces stepped up and put in a decisive performance. He singled out praise for Deepak Chahar and said that he was impressed with the way he used the conditions on offer.
"We wanted to try a couple of guys and we thought of giving the Chahar brothers a go in this game. With the new ball, he (Deepak Chahar) was outstanding. There was some cloud cover but the kind of swing he got early on and the three wickets really set West Indies back. I was definitely impressed with how Deepak bowled and also how Rahul came back in his third over to take a wicket,' Kohli further said.
