‘It’s been the team culture led by aggression of Virat Kohli’: Karim explains reason behind excellence of India batters

Saba Karim highlighted that the players who showed good form in white-ball cricket are now getting opportunity to play the longest format as well.

Former India cricketer Saba Karim has lavished rich praise on the current lot of the Indian players for their heroics across all formats of the game. On Monday, Virat Kohli's Team India defeated England by 151 in the Lord’s Test, going 1-0 up in the 5-match series. The visitors produced some top-class performances in all departments to outfox the home team.

Saba Karim praises Team India's batting (HT Collage)

Speaking in a YouTube chat with the channel IVM Podcasts, the former cricketer named a few youngsters who have been in a rich vein of form lately. Karim was of the opinion that domestic cricket has played a huge role in making the cricketers ready to play multiple formats.

“Today, Pant, Mayank and Rahul have experience in multiple formats which they gained from domestic level. This is the benefit which they are getting in performing at the international level. And this has also been the culture of Indian team led by aggression of Virat Kohli,” Saba Karim said.

“Today we have more players than earlier who are talented and all of them have the belief that they can beat other countries in their own conditions,” he added.

Saba Karim further highlighted that the players who showed good form in white-ball cricket are now getting opportunity to play the longest format as well. He said England are struggling to get quality players in Test as they are not giving chances to multi-format players.

“If we make playing XI of multi-format players, no other country can compete with us. Many countries today are reluctant to give chance to their white ball players to play red ball. England need to change their mindset. They need to give chances to players who are doing good in any format,” Saba Karim said.