India v/s New Zealand: Virat Kohli offers no guarantee on R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja's future

Virat Kohli’s Team India will be playing under the new ODI rules for the first time when they take on New Zealand in the three-match ODI series starting on Sunday at the Wankhede in Mumbai.

Kohli said on the eve of the match on Saturday that it is a good thing 'with the new regulations coming in, it just makes things much more exciting and a bit more professional'. Kohli said that awareness of the new rules are being created with the team.

Excerpts from an interaction with the media ahead of the series:

On the need for planning for the future and maintaining team balance:

Well, we certainly look to give chances to guys who we think have the ability to perform at this level. It’s not a situation where you start giving chances to people so much that you compromise on winning the series because of lack of experience. So, we need to strike that good balance regularly.

For this series, Dinesh Karthik has come in for KL (Rahul). We felt KL opens mostly and we don’t want to have a situation like what Ajinkya Rahane was going through in between, having to play in the middle order forcefully because of what the top order was doing.

So, we thought that it is better that he (Rahul) gets game time in the first-class level, so we have got in Dinesh, who has always played in the middle-order, who’s more comfortable and more aware of how to bat in the middle order. So, we need to strike that good balance, bring in guys who have the ability, who have done well in domestic cricket, who have done well for India ‘A’ and track their performances and give them chances accordingly.

On where Ajinkya Rahane fits in after the two regular openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan are back:

Well, he has (Rahane) definitely grabbed his opportunities as the third opener, because as I mentioned there was KL Rahul as well competing for the spot. But Ajinkya has performed well, he has stood up and taken his chances. That’s how the dynamics of a team work. When you have four guys who play in a similar position, and obviously one of them will have to be miss out and even in the three, only two can play in the eleven.

Again, as a I mentioned, you don’t want to confuse him (Rahane) too much with making him play in the middle order because you need to find your game in ODI cricket, you need to understand how to go about things in ODI cricket and he has always been solid at the top of the order because of his technique and he likes playing there, and it gives him freedom to go after the bowlers.

So, as I said we don’t want to confuse him, he is in a happy space and he knows whenever someone who is not going through a good phase or there is an injury coming up, he is there right at the door step waiting to play a game whenever the team requires him to. He is pretty happy with his batting at the moment and, as I said, we don’t want to confuse him so much.

On the success of his spinners and where that leaves Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja:

This is something that we need to experiment with, find our best bowling combination before we reach the World Cup stage. We always had in mind to bring wrist spinners into play. We honestly did not think of playing two together but they are so good together that it is tempting to play them every game together.

Also, we will have to see how much we expose certain bowlers who are playing formats for us, who have played across formats, again as I said it’s a rhythm thing. With batsmen, it’s very different. With bowlers, it’s even more difficult because you really need to change the way you bowl according to a format and that can hamper the most important format which is Test cricket for us.

#TeamIndia captain @imVkohli cannot resist playing his two young wrist spinners at one go #INDvNZ pic.twitter.com/MSr5LrIEgZ

— BCCI (@BCCI) October 21, 2017

It’s been a combination of both – giving guys chances as well as understanding the workloads of bowlers who have played for a while. Ashwin and Jadeja have played for last 6-7 years, played limited-overs cricket for us regularly.

These youngsters have stepped up, it creates a strong pool for us before the World Cup and contrary to a lot of things being said left, right and centre, we understand how the dynamics of the team going forward and that is something which will be hard to explain otherwise, people only count results and right now we are getting results, so we are happy with it.

On playing under the new rules for the first time:

Yeah, we just had a meeting. There are a few rules which are very different. You know, the batsman reaching the crease and bat bouncing being a not out; there is grey area to that as well. The rule of Umpire’s Call in DRS, you get the review back. So there are few rule changes which are quite interesting. There is one about catching as well, you know the first contact has to be inside the field of play.

So, I think the guys will need awareness with these new rules. They are always difficult to keep a check on initially, but I think we all will get used to it. But it's a good thing, new regulations coming in just makes things much more exciting and bit more professional, I guess.

You have to keep in mind a lot of things while you are on the field and this just adds to that and helps you more focussed on what needs to be done during the course of a game.

On the ODI rankings, his and India’s, currently at No. 2:

We don't think of rankings. Look, points are tied. We had a rest period, South Africa are playing games in that period. So, you can't really pinpoint some things, you can't be frustrated sitting at home that your ranking is gone and stuff like that. We just want to play good cricket, we've been playing good cricket and that continues to be our main goal. We are really happy with what we are doing as a team at the moment.

These things will go up and down because not all teams play together. As I said, even for batsman you play at different stages, someone goes up in points someone doesn't. It doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, you have to contribute towards the team's win.

You know, these are the only things that matter to us. Rankings, ratings, all these things are definitely incentives of doing well, but that's not the ultimate goal. These are things that you might feel good about afterwards but you have to focus on the process and our goal will be the same this series also.

On the hectic schedule ahead and planning rotation policy for key players:

Yes, we have spoken about it, it's become quite hectic. That's something that you know that we will definitely have to sit and discuss in future. Because, if you look at New Zealand, they haven't played any cricket after Champions Trophy. There has been such a good lay off.

It can be the difference in doing well in a big tournament and not being able to do well. We are expected to perform on a consistent basis. But I think the rest and time to prepare should be adequate for athletes as well. This should not be an area where players are chipped and changed according to form, you need to look at all aspects in terms of how many games you are playing, how much rest you are getting.

Whether you will be able to maintain that consistency for 12 months given the number of matches that we play. Physically, are you able to keep up with it how much ever fitness you do? But everyone needs rest. Everyone needs time to come back, especially the fast bowlers.

So we are doing that now with Umesh (Yadav), (Mohammed) Shami. We want them fresh for a Test season coming up. We don't want over-tired players and that's something we have spoken about already. Even some of the key batsmen will definitely get some rest in the future weeks, because of the importance of the away tours coming up. So, we will have to figure out ways to do that, but it's certainly a thing that we need to discuss for the future as well.