When you are ranked among the top three teams in the world, there is a constant urge to keep checking the table to see when you displace others to take the pole position. Before the final Test against the West Indies began at the Queen’s Park Oval, India secured the top position, but with just 22 overs of play possible in the next five days, India were forced to move down a spot at No. 2.
Test captain Virat Kohli is not the one to be too perturbed with the frequently changing table. For him, the goal is to be the best Test side in the world as he knows that when that happens, India will invariably on the top. The aggressive captain hence did not give too much weightage to the rankings, but underlined the goal the young Test team has. “Rankings keep going up and down, you don’t play for rankings, but you obviously want to be a very strong side in the world, and that’s always been our aim, to be the best side in the world.
“I wasn’t too excited when we became No. 1 because I knew that it’s pretty close, the other teams have played more games than us, and we need to play as many games. We will be able to assess ourselves as a side when we finish the whole season, so it’s fine.”
It was the first time that India won two Test matches in the Caribbean. The 2-0 margin, Kohli said was a fair representation as the Test series was affected by rain and wet ground conditions despite no rain for over three days in Port of Spain. “The amount of cricket we played, I think it’s a pretty fair representation. In Jamaica, we lost a day of cricket. We don’t want to keep thinking about ‘what if’. We have to deal with what’s in front of us. This game again, we didn’t have any play, so we couldn’t control the result. The other two games we won convincingly, and that pleased the whole squad.”
Kohli, who emerged as the series top run-getter with 251 runs in four innings at an average of 62.75 was particularly delighted with the efforts of wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha and R. Ashwin with the bat. Ashwin scored two centuries in the series batting at No. 6, while Saha registered his maiden Test ton in the third Test at St. Lucia. It was a crucial 213-run partnership the two shared as India were in danger at 126-5 on the first day of the third Test. “For me, the biggest positive was Saha getting runs in the lower order plus Ashwin coming good at No. 6.
Those were areas that were very important for us to solidify, and we have done that in this series. I’m pretty happy. I hope we can keep on making that aspect of our team stronger because when you are in a tough situation in Test matches those are the positions that matter a lot.”
Kohli was also happy that his bowling group was sticking to a plan. “Bowlers are taking responsibility; they are not selfish. If one bowler needs to bowl in one area, he’s doing that, so that the other bowler can get wickets, and I think this is very necessary, for the people in the team to be selfless, and it’s the biggest quality of this team, that if someone else is taking wickets, the other bowler will bowl in one area. It’s not that he will go after wickets and spoil our plans. Our team has developed this attitude, and we will have to keep working on the same thing as we go forward if we are to become the strongest team in the world.”
