ENG vs IND 2018: Virat Kohli Has his Say on Importance of T20I's against England

With the next World T20 slated in 2020, many have opined T20I series are inconsequential at the moment. However, ahead of the T20I series against England, India skipper Virat Kohli made it clear his side is not going to treat the series lightly.

While Kohli admitted that for someone it might be right to treat the series as inconsequential, he said the scenario is different when the series takes place at the start of a long tour.

Virat Kohli also said the long gap between the two World T20s would allow the teams to try the different set of players.

“This is something which has been spoken in the past as well. Few teams have said that it is inconsequential. They haven’t felt motivated to be playing that series. I would agree with that if something like that happens at the fag end of a big tour.

But at the start of any tour, whatever games you are getting to play, you are as excited as the other team. You don’t feel like there is no point of playing these games. Especially when you are playing against a strong side like England who have been playing good cricket.

You have a chance to test your skills as a T20 player. But with a major tournament being away, it gives you an opportunity to try a lot of players, try a lot of bench-strength, a lot of fringe players. We are certainly in that zone,” he said on the eve of the first T20I.

Kohli also said the team would continue to be flexible with the batting order.

The Men in Blue have already given a glimpse of this during the Ireland series by making several changes to the playing eleven that won the first T20I.

Not only that, but there were also some changes to the batting order as well.

In the first game, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma had opened the innings. But in the following game, Virat Kohli, who got out for a duck in the first game, opened the innings with KL Rahul.

Rohit batted at number three while Dhawan got rested. MS Dhoni also was rested, as Dinesh Karthik took the wicketkeeping duties.

“We are certainly going to be a lot more flexible. We are not going to be one-dimensional. That’s something that we have spoken as a batting unit. We could throw in some surprises here and there. Because it is not a long batting inning, you can afford to do that.

If the situation is not ideal after taking a decision, you can still work on it, capitalise a bit. There is not much time to think about if the situation has gone wrong,” Kohli said.