He was calm, collected and when asked if the Indian team was ready for a stern test against England who have just defeated Australia 6-0 in white-ball cricket, he responded by saying: “In T20 cricket, wickets are going to be something that provides entertainment to the crowd, so no team has an advantage in this format. I think whoever plays well that day has a better chance of winning. We expect England to be tough against us. We certainly want to play positive, hard-fought cricket. This is going to be an exciting series and we think we have the team to put up a great fight. If we win crucial moments, anything can happen that day. In T20 cricket you don’t get second chances but we are quite confident as a team.

Asked about the importance of this bilateral series with the T20 World Cup in two years, Virat was quick to respond by saying, “This has also been said in the past. Few teams said it, it had no consequences… I would be OK with it if it happened at the end of the tour. At the start of a tour, whatever game you’re playing, you’re as excited as the other team. And you don’t feel like there’s no point in playing these matches, especially when you’re playing a strong team like England, who are playing good cricket, you have a chance to test yourself.

“As the major tournament approaches, it gives you an opportunity to test the strength of your bench, to try fringe players, to test their characters as well. We are also in this zone, we will definitely try a lot of cricketers also in the T20 matches, test their characters, test their skills and accordingly determine who will be the next group to come in, especially in the limited-overs group. overs format.

Virat has been lucid when it comes to talking about the takeaways from any given tour and the type of cricket he and his boys want to play. He feels that India must replicate the mindset and play that they displayed in South Africa. Even though they lost the Test series 2-1, the boys came back stronger with a series win in the ODIs and T20Is.

“What we will take away from this tour will obviously be the way we play cricket and the mindset and attitude that we will maintain for the duration of the tour that we are here. Nobody can guarantee the results, but just wanting to win every session and every ball that we play, if we can continue that throughout the tour, I will be really proud as a captain and we will be really proud of ourselves as a team.

“That’s what we did in South Africa until the last day of the tour: we kept the mindset of the first day, even though we lost a few matches, but we knew we were in matches to be able to turn things around quickly and that’s why these results followed.”

It is essential to maintain a good state of mind throughout the tour and the skipper felt that to keep things straight it is important to stay positive.
“If the mindset is not right after a few days or weeks, things can get more difficult, but if we can stay positive and enjoy each other’s company and look forward to being here during this time and looking forward to getting on the field and playing competitive cricket, I think we’ll be able to space that out as a team and definitely get a lot out of this tour when we go away.

Asked about the team combination India is looking to play in limited-overs cricket with the 2019 World Cup less than a year away, the skipper was quick to respond by saying we will try a lot of players in the longer formats short.

“In ODIs, the middle order is something we are looking for and we have a few things we want to try and tackle there as well. So this next phase is going to be really important to understand all these things and have the best balance that we need for this big tournament, but it’s quite far away, but we have a vision for it.