Don’t feel like competing with anyone, I only look to help my team, says Virat Kohli

For Indian skipper Virat Kohli, the 6-match ODI series against South Africa has been truly special. The 29-year not only led his side to the first ever series victory in South Africa, but also scored three centuries in the bilateral series. He amassed 558 runs at an average of 186 in 6 ODIs as India went on to beat Proteas by 5-1. His performances has given a rise to questions on whether he is currently the best batsman in the world.

Speaking about his own performance, Kohli told reporters at a press conference after the 6th ODI at Centurion, that he just looks to help his team. “Look I will be very honest with you, at this stage, I don’t feel like competing with anyone. It is all about how I prepare for the game and what my work ethics are and how I am feeling on game day and my only motivation is to get into that frame of mind. I am not competing with anyone at all. If anything, I only look to help my team in any way I can. And during the course of that, I have mentioned that if you are thinking about the team, special things happen,” the right-handed batsman said.

The Indian captain further added that he will not live in a “dreamland” and feel good about all the praises. “Look as I said, I’m not going to give in to this. I know for a fact that 90 percent of the people didn’t give us a chance after two Tests. I was sitting in the same room giving a press conference. So we understand where we’ve come from. I’m not going to live in a dreamland right now and accept all the praise and sit here and feel good about this because it doesn’t matter to me. Honestly, it doesn’t,” the skipper said.

Kohli, who smashed his 35th ODI hundred on Friday to take India to an 8-wicket win, further added that he does not want any headlines. “As I said I don’t want any tags, I don’t want any headlines, I just go out there and do my job, it is up to the people to write what they write, I don’t want to be called anything, it’s my job, I am supposed to do what I am doing and I am not doing anyone a favour as I said, so just want to be in this zone of working as hard as I can and trying to do the best for the team. Everyone is doing a job, they have the freedom to write and say what they want but it’s very important that I don’t change with that because my zone is very simple, it is simply doing hard work and performing for the team.”

Before the ODI series, India faced a tough time against South Africa, especially with the bat, in the 3-match Test series. Kohli admitted that he did not give himself much time to prepare for the Test series. “I obviously didn’t have much time to prepare because I was doing something very important, I was getting married. So three weeks I was totally away from the game, but at the back of my mind, there was always this motivation that I just want to be in South Africa. It’s embracing being in a difficult situation and that’s all we speak about in the change room as well,” he said.

The Indian captain further praised the power of mind and said that the team can come out of any situation if they continue to work hard to help the team. “When things are hostile and when thing are not going your way, you want to go out there in the middle rather than getting extra sleep in the room. It is a very small change of thought but that makes a massive difference because when you go out there, you either want to take up the challenge or you don’t and that can only come from here,” he said.

After a dominant performance in the ODIs, India and South Africa will now go head-to-head in 3-match T20Is which starts from Sunday.

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