The ex-wicketkeeper and batsman of the Indian cricket team, Dinesh Karthik, teased a great deal about the plans of the Indian team captain, Virat Kohli, for the 2027 ODI World Cup. Kohli has already quit Tests and T20Is but he still aims at playing in the ODIs. He will be playing soon in the Australia ODI series which starts on Sunday.
Dinesh Karthik, who has been a teammate of Kohli in India and the IPL team Royal Challengers Banglore, expressed that the ace batsman is committed to the next ODI World Cup and at that even disclosed the fact that Kohli has been undergoing hard training in London while he was not playing. Karthik also took to Instagram to speak about Kohli’s significance to the national team.
“He is keen to play the World Cup. That is number one. In London, he was training during this big layoff that he has had after a long time in his life. I also know he was practising cricket easily 2-3 sessions a week,” he said.
“Now that tells you the man is serious about wanting to play this World Cup. And if he is around, there is no tension, according to me. Because he knows what it takes to perform under pressure. And he has done that time and time again. And I am very confident he will do it again,” he added.
Karthik clarified the role that Virat plays for the team and its importance.
“First of all, let’s take a look at the plain statistics. The player in question scored 1098 runs at 64.58 after the World Cup in 2023. To put it another way, he is the very heart of Indian batting and around him whole team functions very well. The others like (Shubman Gill, Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul they all play positively and aggressively, not because they do not like Kohli’s stone-faced batting but because he is there to take the pressure off. If something goes wrong, Virat will be the one from the other end to take care of the matter. The most recent instance is the Champions Trophy match against Pakistan. A slight wobble; he was there at 31 for 1. And then if you take the semi-finals (vs Australia) also, at 42 for 2 he was again there batting; he had India out from a very difficult position,” he stated.
