A balanced team gives us license to play more freely: Kohli

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli today sent out a warning to rivals, saying his team is the most balanced side now which will give them the license to play more freely as they begin their campaign in the IPL-8 cricket tournament against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) here tomorrow.
"I personally feel that this season you will probably see myself, Chris and AB (de Villiers) expressing ourselves more than ever," Kohli told reporters on the eve of the match.
"This year is a great opportunity for us to actually cross that line. We have a much more balanced team. Probably the most balanced we have had, because the Indian batting was something that we were lacking.

"But now with four-five youngsters coming in in the middle order, it's really strengthened our batting. We bat deep now. So the combination is right. Hopefully this one is the season for us.
"We have good depth in our batting and we have got good resources this time, so we can start to bat freely. In the last two, three years we batted under more pressure as compared to other teams because we were relying top heavy," he said.
Reflecting on their past performances, Kohli said earlier the team was under pressure as other teams were batting till no 8 and so the top guys could go and express themselves.

"We had to mix caution and aggression. This time, I won't say that we will blindly go and swing the bat but you will probably see the guys more relaxed in expressing themselves more and be confident in what they want to execute and not have as many second thoughts as probably we would have had in the last couple of seasons," he said.

Despite having all the ingredients of a champion team, RCB are yet to win the title and Kohli said the fans expect them to win the trophy because they play entertaining brand of cricket.
"That's quite a debate. We have played two finals, we have played two semifinals, four times we failed to qualify. So it's been a mixed sort of performance from us," he said.

"But the seasons we have played well, we have probably been the most entertaining team. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel that disappointment or that strange feeling that they have, that why doesn't this team win. They have had that sort of anger inside them, in a good way. They want us to win," he said at the Eden Gardens.