press trust of india
Sydney, March 25: Not many gave the Indian cricket team a chance in the World Cup after the horror tour of Australia but star batsman Virat Kohli stated that the players never stopped believing in themselves which helped them surprise the critics.
“To be honest, not many people gave us the chance, even to qualify for the semis and I know that for a fact when the tournament started. So we’ve surprised a lot of people, but we haven’t surprised ourselves at all,” Kohli was quoted as saying by ‘cricket.com.au’ in an interview here Wednesday.
“We knew that we had the capability and we had the kind of talent and passion that’s needed for us to be a successful international side in any format,” the Indian batsman added.
India are very close to another World Cup triumph as they take on co-hosts Australia in the second semifinal at the SCG here Thursday tomorrow and Kohli knows the importance of winning the game.
“Winning the World Cup and going back would be really a great achievement, especially knowing that we did that in Australia,” Kohli said. He asserted that the time between the Tri-series and the World Cup was when the team realised the need to start afresh and move forward.
“I think that was the time that the bowlers realised what we needed to look for in the World Cup and the things we needed to improve on. We left behind whatever happened before that in the series, we only picked up the positives and we moved forward and I think in a long tour you need to do that. You need to refresh yourself, clean the slate and start afresh,” asserted Kohli. The batsman also stated that the Oz batsmen will face a tough time against Indian bowlers.