New Delhi:
Virat Kohli has been at his aggressive best in the ongoing series against West Indies. In the Twenty20 International in Hyderabad, Kohli unleased an assault on Kesrick Williams and trolled him with his signature notebook style celebration for what the bowler had done in 2017 in Jamaica. During the Chennai ODI, Kohli was visibly incensed at the umpires after Ravindra Jadeja was run-out in controversial circumstances. During the Vizag ODI, Kohli was pumped up and he gave skipper Kieron Pollard an animated farewell as he fell for a golden duck. After losing the Chennai ODI by eight wickets, India leveled the series in style with a 107-run win in the second ODI. When asked as to why Kohli was so animated, Pollard said he had no clue.
"You have to ask him why he is so animated. I can't answer that for you. It is what it is. You ask him that question and let him answer that. I don't know. I have no clue," Pollard said. The Windies skipper rued the fact that the team gave away too many runs in the death overs.
In a three-over period, West Indies leaked 68 runs as Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant capitalised on the opportunities and pounded the West Indies into submission. "Chasing 388, guys had to go out and express themselves, rather than trying to get in. I thought, where the game changed was in last 10 overs (of Indian innings), we went for a 127 runs, that's where we lost the momentum in the entire game. Before that, it was neck and neck and we knew it was a good track. We haven't really executed in the back-end which has been really the storyline for us when there has been a flat track," Pollard said.
For West Indies, only Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran put up a fight. Pooran scored at a strike-rate of over 130 but Hope scored at a strike rate of just 75. However, during the course of his knock, Hope overtook Virat Kohli to become the second-highest leading run-getter in ODIs in 2019. Pollard was not too worried about Hope's none-too-impressive strike rate of 75 as he knows what the keeper-opener brings to the table.
"Sometimes we get carried away by so many stats and so many datas that we don't give importance to how we build a team. You don't build a team with guys who only play shots. You got to have an anchor who would hold one end. If you look at how we played cricket in past few years, we have been losing a lot of wickets early up and so you have to build a foundation. You can't build the top part of the house and then build the bottom. We have identified Shai as someone who opens the batting and has been phenomenal," Pollard said.
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It's all about knowing the roles and responsibilities rather data crunching, which Pollard believes is the media's job. "You go up and down and that's how you find a middle ground. It's work in progress for us and we don't want to get into details about that strike rate. We leave that to you guys to write about and we would enjoy reading the articles," he said.
