I'm not someone who hits in air to entertain crowd, I focus on winning matches: Kohli

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Press Trust of India Hyderabad
Last Updated : Dec 06 2019 | 11:35 PM IST

Indian captain Virat Kohli on Friday said that he's not a player who hits the ball in the air to entertain the crowd but someone who wants to do his job and win matches for the country.

Kohli, who played a sublime innings of career-best 94 not out in India's six-wicket win over West Indies in the first T20 International, said he does not want to play slam-bang cricket even in this shortest format.

"Whenever I play T20 cricket I am not someone who comes to the ground to hit the ball in the air to entertain the crowd. I focus on doing the job. Our strength as a team is to strike in the latter half of the innings," Kohli said after the match.

"I don't want to change my game too much because I play all three formats. I just want to contribute in all three formats, that's what I want to do. I dont' want to be a format specialist."
"That's what you want to see. Good competitive cricket but in the end shake hands and give a hi-fi. That's what cricket is all about. Play it hard but have respect for opponents."
"It was just about keeping up to the game because I didn't want to put KL (Rahul) under pressure, so tried to strike at 140 at least, but I couldn't get going properly. I analysed what went wrong and played accordingly in the second half of my innings. I was trying to hold my shape and realised I am not a slogger, so tried to rely on my timing."
"There are two areas in any game, and with the bat the guys were exceptional. There are a lot of positives to take from this game. Hetmyer and Lewis got back amongst the runs and that was quite satisfying, but we need to do the all-round basics right."

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First Published: Dec 06 2019 | 11:35 PM IST

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