India is set to take on Australia in their second Test match at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore and Australia's captain Steve Smith seems really confident ahead of this match as he says that his team is only "one or two sessions" away from retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
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"I think they will feel under a little bit of pressure. Obviously, going into this series, all I heard was 4-0 to them. So, they're one down and need to come back. We're one win away from [retaining] the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Things can happen pretty quickly here. So, we might be one or two sessions away from getting that back. I'm sure they'll feel under a bit of pressure" ESPN cricinfo quoted Smith as saying.
Prior to the start of this four Test match series, Australia were regarded as the underdogs and India were expected to dominate this Test series considering how well they performed against England. But Australia managed to outperform India in the first Test in Pune as they won that match by 333 runs. India will have to win this match and level the series or risk losing the series or will have to settle for a draw.
Kohli responded to Smith's comments and he did it with a smile on his face saying he is pretty relaxed ahead of the second Test match. He said that Smith can say whatever he wants as they are his views, but his team will play their cricket and see what happens after the fourth Test match.
"Me? As a team? Does it look like [we're under pressure]? I'm pretty relaxed. I'm happy. I'm smiling. It's fine, those are his views and [he can say] whatever he wants to say. I think it's time we focus on our skills more than what Australia is saying or preparing like," Kohli said.
"I know these minds games in these press conferences are something they're very good at. We're still going to play the cricket that we've played for the last two years and see where the series ends after the fourth game," he added.
India will also face a big task of stopping the Australian captain who hit a century in the second innings of the first Test match despite the poor conditions of the Pune pitch. Kohli said that his team's focus will not only be to stop Smith as he was in the crease for so long because his team gave him a number of lives during the second innings.
"If we don't hold onto our chances it doesn't matter at the end of the day how many runs we score. We're not focusing on one player only. The whole ten wickets have to be taken twice to win a Test match. The comments and headlines don't matter. They never have, and we won't base our cricket on it. The whole team has to play well against Australia to win a Test match, that's something we've identified. We're not focusing on one player at all" Kohli said.
