High-quality rivals competing in a round robin format has made the upcoming World Cup the \u201cmost challenging\u201d for India skipper Virat Kohli, who says maintaining intensity from the first ball will be the key to his side\u2019s fortunes in the showpiece event, starting May 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kohli, who has competed in three World Cups before, said they do not have much breathing space because they have four tough games upfront and in a way it should help them.For the first time since the 1992 edition, all teams will play each other once to decide the semi-finalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After opening their campaign South Africa on June 5, India will take on Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan.Personally, it will probably be the most challenging World Cup I have been part of because of the format and also the strength of all the teams. If you look at Afghanistan from 2015 to now, they are a completely different side,\u201d said Kohli at the pre-departure press conference here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAny team can upset anyone. That is one thing we have in mind. Focus will be on to play the best cricket that we can. You have to play to the best of your potential in every game because it is not a group stage situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPlaying everyone once is great for all the teams in my view. It is going to be a different challenge and every team will have to adapt quickly to,\u201d added Kohli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Talking about his side\u2019s first four games, Kohli said, \u201cThat sets the tone nicely for us. Everyone will have to be at their best and maintain intensity from the first match onwards. You don\u2019t have any room for complacency and that is why it is the World Cup and the most important tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe expect that kind of pressure from the first second we step on the field. We are not going to let ourselves think that \u2018first week onwards we will get into it\u2019. You have to arrive on the day match ready with hundred per cent match intensity and start building from there. This is the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you look at all the top clubs in football they maintain their intensity for three-four months whether in Premier League or La Liga. So why not? If we get on a roll and we maintain our consistency we should be able to do it for the length of the tournament.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recent series between Pakistan and England saw 300-plus scores being the norm but Kohli said things could change in the quadrennial tournament.More than the conditions, his team will have to come out on top in high-pressure situations, said the skipper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is always good to go to any place in advance. You are right, it does getting rid of the nerves you might have as a side going into the World Cup. White ball cricket in England, playing an ICC event, the conditions are not that difficult compared to Tests. Handling the most pressure is the most important thing in World Cup and not necessarily the conditions.\u201dKohli said his highly-rated bowling line-up is ready for the challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs I said the pitches are going to be very good. It is summer and the conditions are going to be nice. We expect high scoring games but a bilateral series can\u2019t be compared to a Word Cup, it is very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo we might also see 260-270 kind of games and teams defending it because of the pressure factor. We expect all kinds of scenarios in the World Cup.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll the bowlers in the squad, even in the IPL, they were preparing themselves for 50-over cricket. You saw all the guys bowling, no one looked tired after bowling four overs. They were very fresh. The ultimate goal at the back of their mind was always to be fit for the 50-over format and not necessarily let the fitness come down and that was communicated to them before the IPL started.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
High-quality rivals competing in a round robin format has made the upcoming World Cup the \u201cmost challenging\u201d for India skipper Virat Kohli, who says maintaining intensity from the first ball will be the key to his side\u2019s fortunes in the showpiece event, starting May 30. Kohli, who has competed in three World Cups before, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61859,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61857\/revisions\/61859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}