India vs New Zealand: ‘Don’t see anyone taking their place for granted’ - Virat Kohli

He spoke about the importance of Ajinkya Rahane to the side and said that the vice-captain has played important knocks when the spotlight is on.

Team India captain Virat Kohli has thrown his weight behind young wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant and said that the culture in the side was such that no one takes their place for granted and that, people put a tag on their own performance and place. The Indian batting failed as a unit and the captain was not willing to single out any batsman for the same.

Indian captain Virat Kohli (AP)

“We have given a lot of chances to Rishabh, you need to figure out when is the right time to give someone a chance. I don’t see anyone taking their place for granted in this team, no one here has come in thinking that I am going to play every game,” Kohli told reporters.

“Rishabh has worked very hard behind the scenes, so we thought of giving him a chance in this series. We thought he will come good in this series, but as a collective unit, we did not show a good batting performance,” he further added.

“Firstly, Rahane is one of those players who has been solid for us in Test cricket. It is about impact performances and he has played some crucial knocks. You also have to figure out as to how many guys average more than 40 in your team. Few games here and there if you don’t score runs, doesn’t mean you are a bad player. There are no issues there,” Kohli said.

“In the Australia series, Pujara was the standout player. You cannot single out anyone. We have an aim of scoring big runs, it can happen with everyone scoring 50 or 60 or with one guy scoring 150 as Pujara did in Australia. In our team, we work as a collective unit,” he added.