India v England: Virat Kohli wary of tourists' 'fearless' batsmen
Sunday 15 January 2017 19:05, UK
Virat Kohli believes England's "fearless" batsmen need to understand strike rotation if they are to beat India in the forthcoming ODI series.
India’s captain admit the touring batsmen "are fearless" but still have plenty to learn about batting in the 50-over format ahead of Sunday's first ODI in Pune, live on Sky Sports 2.
The three-match series will be Kohli’s first in charge, replacing Mahendra Singh Dhoni who stood down recently.
And his assessment of the opposition was fairly candid: "They seem to be quite fearless, which is always a good thing in the shorter format of the game.
"But, at the same time, I've always felt that to be a consistent performer in the ODI format, you need to understand strike rotation as well.
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"You can't just go in with one sort of momentum. That is something we will look to counter, see if they lose a few early wickets, what are the plans they come up with?
"It's going to be interesting how hard they come initially but in one-day cricket I've seen a lot of times, teams start off really well.
“In the first 10 overs they really dominate, and then once you lose two or three wickets in the middle phase, unless you know how to rotate strike, it gets very, very difficult.
"So we already have plans in place in terms of how we counter what they're going to come up with."
England’s firepower comes via the bats of Jason Roy, Alex Hales and Jos Buttler, and captain Eoin Morgan says his team know exactly what it takes when batting in the middle.
Responding to Kohli, he added: "I wouldn't say it's fearless, I just like to think we play in our own way. The group of players we have are very outgoing, they're very expansive and explosive.
“They do what they say they're going to do and stick to their natural game, which is quite an aggressive game.
"We're not trying to be somebody else. We're trying to be ourselves. Trying to be a different team doesn't work for us.
“As individuals it's about being yourself and being comfortable in your skin and that's something that's worked.
"If this side scores 275-300 it means we've fallen a long way short."
The tourists will be desperate to make amends, following their hammering in the Test series before Christmas which ended 4-0 in favour of India.
Watch the first ODI between India and England from 7.30am on Sunday, live on Sky Sports 2.
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