World Cup 2019: We expect ourselves to play the best cricket, says Virat Kohli

After addressing the media at BCCI's headquarters, Cricket Centre on Tuesday afternoon for about 18 minutes, India captain Virat Kohli told his head coach Ravi Shastri that he was going to meet his coach.

Shastri and Kohli were charting out their plans of heading back to the team hotel when the skipper told the coach: "I am going to meet my coach. He is here for some other work and I want to meet him."

Flanked by two bodyguards and some photographers tailing him, Kohli, as fit and trim as he ever is and exuding confidence ahead of the all-important World Cup in England and Wales, he headed towards the Wankhede Stadium to meet his childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma.

Sharma later confirmed to DNA that Kohli did come and meet him at the Wankhede to take his blessings before departing for the quadrennial event in the wee hours of Wednesday.

"He came to take my blessings. I wanted to wish him well for the World Cup and that is why I came all the way from Delhi," Sharma told this scribe.

Kohli will do everything he can in his third World Cup appearance, and first as captain, and live up to his coach's expectations, as much as the entire team will do well to live up to the desired levels of the entire nation.

And, the 30-year-old captain sounded only confident of doing well when he addressed the media.

"The only expectation we have is to play really good cricket and that's been our focus," Kohli said in his opening statement. "And that's why the results have followed in the last 2-3 years. We go into the World Cup feeling very balanced, very strong as a side, and you saw in the IPL as well.

"All the players in the squad were in great form and playing really well. From that point of view, we expect ourselves to play the best cricket that we can and be good. That's about the only focus we will have and that will mean we will have to focus on the processes also to be able to do that. That's the only expectation everyone has on the team."

India captain Virat Kohli (R) and head coach Ravi Shastri leave after addressing the media at BCCI’s Cricket Centre in Mumbai on Tuesday —ANI

Kohli and Co have two weeks before opening their campaign against South Africa at Hampshire Bowl, Southampton, on June 5. And, they also acclimatise to the conditions by playing two warm-ups, against New Zealand on May 25 and against Bangladesh on May 28.

'Most challenging format'

The world No. 1-ranked ODI batsman also felt that the format in the 10-team tournament in which each plays the other once before the semifinals is the "most challenging World Cup he has been part of".

"It is probably the most challenging World Cup of all the three that I have been a part of because of the format and looking at strengths of all the sides as well," Kohli said. "If you look at Afghanistan from 2015 to now, they are a completely different side. Any team can upset anyone on their day. That's one thing that we have in mind.

"As I said, the focus will be to play the best cricket we can play and if we live up to our skill sets and our standards that we have set for ourselves, we will probably be on the right side of the results more often. That's going to be the key. Every game you have to play to the best of your potential because it's not a group stage any more, it's just playing everyone one once. I think it's a great thing to have for any team. It's going to be different challenge and something that every team will have to adapt very quickly to."

With India playing nine games in the space of 32 days with three-four days gaps between each, Kohli said the challenge will be to maintain the intensity levels throughout. He will take inspiration from the European football leagues where the teams stay on top for the duration of their tournaments for about three-four months.

"It is going to be challenging. The good thing is that every game has a decent gap between each other, From that point of view, I don't think the players will be burnt out even if you have hectic games or intense games immediately. You will always have time to regroup and work on the next one.

"If you look at the top class football clubs in the world, they maintain their intensity for three-four months in the Premier League or in the La Liga. If we get on a roll and we maintain our consistency, then we should be able to do it for a length of the tournament," Kohli said.

Kohli was upbeat about going well in two weeks in advance for the tournament. "It does get rid of all the nerves you have in the side going into a tournament like the World Cup. That's the most important thing. White ball cricket, playing in England, playing an ICC tournament, the conditions are not that different or that difficult compared to Test cricket. So from that point of view, it will be very helpful.

"All the bowlers in the squad, during the IPL, were preparing themselves to be in the zone of playing 50-over cricket. If you see all the guys bowling, no one looked tired or fatigued after bowling four overs. They were very fresh. So the mindset or the ultimate goal at the back of their minds was always to be fit for the 50-overs format and not necessarily let the fitness come down and that was communicated before the IPL started."

Expect batting-friendly pitches

Kohli does expect batsman-friendly pitches as this is an ICC event. And, taking clue from the just-concluded England versus Pakistan ODI series in which all the four completed matches saw seven scores of 340 and above and the lowest being 297 in the final ODI by Pakistan.

Kohli said: "In the ICC tournaments, the pitches are going to be very good and it is summer in the UK, so the conditions are going to be nice as well. Yeah, we expect high-scoring games but a bilateral series compared to a World Cup is very different. You might see a lot of, I wouldn't say low-scoring games but, 260-270 kind of games and teams getting those totals and defending them successfully because of the pressure factor. We expect all kind of scenarios in the World Cup, but there will be quite a few high-scoring games, looking at the conditions."