England have been the best visiting team in India since 2000. Although India’s young Test captain Virat Kohli pays little heed to the past, he will probably be aware that England are the only visitors to have won series in India in the last decade.
The Rajkot Test will be the first among five matches India and England will play this winter. India thrashed New Zealand 3-0 recently and Virat Kohli wants to keep that momentum going. Here are his five best quotes from Tuesday’s interaction with the media:
On quality of opposition: “Since we came back from the West Indies, we knew that the home season is going to be tough. We’re playing quality sides which have been doing well in Test cricket -- New Zealand, England and Australia. We need to be more aware during crucial situations … the mindset is to win series, we want to win Test matches.”
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On losing three Test series to England: “We don’t think about those things… what happened in the past, we can’t go back and change it. We can only look forward to what we can do in the future.”
{{/usCountry}}On losing three Test series to England: “We don’t think about those things… what happened in the past, we can’t go back and change it. We can only look forward to what we can do in the future.”
{{/usCountry}}On England’s weakness against spin: “I wouldn’t say England struggled, they played really well in the first game. The second game, Bangladesh played better in their conditions. We know England is a side that came to India last time and played well. We’re not going to take anything for granted.”
On extra motivation: It is a nice feeling when you win a series. It gives you confidence before you go to the next one. I know it’s not possible to do it (win series) all the time but we have that vision of winning Test matches and more importantly, win a series. And for that you have to play hard cricket aand come back from difficult situations, which this team has done. That given us a lot of confidence and belief in ourselves as a Test team.
On Ravichandran Ashwin: Ashwin is obviously a world class bowler, we all know that. He is in good momentum, he has been bowling really well, bowling in the right areas. I just hope that he has another good series for Team India.