Not enough time to prepare for South Africa tour: Virat Kohli
Nagpur, Nov 23 (IBNS): Expressing displeasure over the playing schedule, Indian captain Virat Kohli on Thursday said the team will not have enough time to prepare for the South African tour, which will begin immediately after the T20I series against Sri Lanka in December.
Speaking at the press conference, unhappy Kohli said: "Unfortunately we (will) get only two days before the flight to South Africa after this series gets over. So we have no choice but to be in game situation and think of what's coming ahead of us. Had we got a month off ideally, we would have done a proper preparation in a camp sort of scenario."
"But we have to make do with what we have as usual cramp of time which we do need to assess in future because we (people) very easily assess the team when we go abroad but we (people) don't look at how many days we have got to prepare....... it should be a fair game where we get to prepare the way we want to and then we are entitled to be criticised." he added.
The Indian team is presently playing the Test series against Sri Lanka. After the end of the Test series, Kohli and co. will play ODI and T20I series against the same opponent.
The South African tour is scheduled to begin at the end of December.
Kohli made the comment while interacting with media regarding the second Test match, beginning on Friday, against Sri Lanka in Nagpur.
Though the Indian team strongly came back in the Kolkata Test after an initial batting collapse in rain-marred first two days, the loss of two team members, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Shikhar Dhawan, would certainly be a sense of worry for the Indian team as both of them powered the side with their performances in the first match.
While man of the match Bhuvneshwar Kumar picked eight wickets in the match, Dhawan scored a blistering knock of 94 runs.
Both Kumar and Dhawan have been released from the Indian team for personal reasons.
Bhuvneshwar will not take any further part in the ongoing Test series against Sri Lanka and the All-India Senior Selection Committee had named Vijay Shankar as his replacement.
Dhawan is available for selection for the third Test.
But all these changes in the team seems to have not affected the Indian captain as Kohli belives the new comers are "well equipped" to fill the boots of Bhuvneshwar and Dhawan.
Kohli said: "We pick a squad keeping in mind that all 15 boys are equipped with what required to perform at the international level and these kinds of scenarios where two boys have missed out for their personal reasons is an oppoirtunity for the boys who get games in this situation."
"So I are not worried about at all because I am very confident with the abilities of the boys who step in and they are looking at this as an opportunity to go out and do well for the team which everyone likes to do so."
The first Test match between India and Sri Lanka in Kolkata had ended in a draw.
The three-match Test series is leveled 0-0.
Indian squad for the second Test: Virat Kohli (Captain), KL Rahul, M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (Vice-Captain), Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket-keeper), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Vijay Shankar.
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