Indian skipper Virat Kohli has said that he is oblivious to what is being said about him and his team by not reading anything written about them.
Interacting with the media on the eve of the first Test against England in Birmingham, Kohli revealed that he had let criticism affect him during the days when he "did not know better."
The 29-year-old added that he is focused on contributing towards the team's cause and that he has not come to England to prove a point to himself or anyone else.
'Criticism bothered me back in the day'
"I am not in a frame of mind to prove myself in any country. I just want to perform for the team, obviously, score runs and take Indian cricket forward. That's my only motive," Kohli said.
He added: "Back in the day when I didn't know better, these things bothered me because I used to read a lot. I genuinely don't read anything now. I have no idea what's going on."
"My focus has been on preparations and where the team heads. If I waste my energy on all these things, I am compromising myself already."
"When I walk out to bat, I have the bat in hand and not the people on the outside who write and predict things. So I need to be in the most convinced and the clearest mental state."
"This happens when I focus on what I need to do. I didn't think 10 years ago that I was going to be sitting here at this point of my career. So I have no complaints, whatsoever."
England is being touted as Kohli's final frontier, considering the fact that the Old Blighty is the only part of the cricketing world where the Delhi batsman has failed to score runs.
The second-ranked Test batsman amassed runs in similarly difficult conditions in Australia and South Africa but the swinging ball seems to trouble him, more often than not.
A lot has been said about how the upcoming five-Test series gives the captain an opportunity to prove himself following his horrid batting show during India's last visit to the country.
Kohli had managed only 134 runs from 10 innings at 13.40 during India's 3-1 defeat in a five-Test series in 2014. The English bowlers, especially James Anderson had exposed the right-handed batsman's weakness outside the off-stump and made him his bunny.
