T20 World Cup: Week-long gap before New Zealand game will help but worried about dew factor, says Virat Kohli

India captain Virat Kohli opened up on the week-long gap between the opening ‘Super 12’ game against Pakistan and the next assignment against New Zealand, saying it will help the team reflect and re-strategise after the 10-wicket drubbing against Babar Azam-led side.

India suffered a defeat at the hands of Pakistan in a World Cup for the first time in nearly three decades and the obvious question was whether, as captain, he would have liked a short turnaround or a fairly good break before the game against the Black Caps come Sunday?

“I think it works really well for us from all points of view. Knowing that we have played a full-fledged season already, we played the IPL, which is very high octane by itself in testing conditions here in the UAE, and then we come into the World Cup” Kohli said at the post-match press conference.

India vs Pakistan, T20 World Cup: Highlights | Report

“So for us, these big breaks are definitely something that’s going to help us as a team to be in the prime physical condition that we need to be to play this high-intensity tournament,” the skipper said.

The break, according to the Indian skipper, gives the team enough time to re-strategize and also focus on the perfect execution of plans before the Kane Williamson-led side comes calling.

“The T20 World Cup is always a high-intensity tournament, and it will help us, again, to regroup as a team…prepare in a very confident manner and then arrive on the day again to make sure that this time we execute our plans,” he explained.

“For us as a team personally I can say it’s a good thing that’s happening. We’ll have time to reflect and to prepare again,” the skipper added.

Because of dew, toss will be a big factor, reckons skipper

While Kohli was graceful in admitting that his team was “outplayed”, he seemed concerned that chasing will have an advantage with the dew setting in during the night games.

Kohli said that the toss was a crucial factor as the team batting second got a little more advantage, with the dew making it easy for the Pakistan batters to rotate strike.

“Yes, toss definitely is going to be a factor in this tournament especially. If the dew keeps creeping in in the later half the game, you need those extra runs in the first half then,” Kohli said.

While the skipper said that pitch wasn’t exactly difficult when they batted but it certainly became a touch easier in the second half when Mohammed Rizwan and Babar Azam took apart the Indian attack.

“If the pitch becomes a little better to bat on and you get off to a start, then you start feeling more confident about the chase. That’s what happened,” he explained.

“The dew came in towards the second half of the Pakistan innings, 10 overs onwards. We could not even get dot balls in because the pitch was obviously providing a big pace for the batsman to work with. The slower balls were not holding up as much.”

In T20 matches, small margins make a big difference and this was one such game, felt Kohli.

“These small little factors, as I said, did make a massive difference, and as a team you need to understand what was the reality of the situation out there in the middle.

“That’s where those 20, 25 extra runs would have been good, but brilliant bowling in the first six did not allow us to get those extra runs.”

Kohli said that he and his players know where they went wrong and would take corrective measures.

“We know exactly how the game went and where it went wrong, and we have absolute clarity of that, and that’s a good thing to know, where we went wrong as a team

“…we can work on it and try to correct it and move forward because we still have a lot of matches in this tournament.”