Bowling riches leave Kohli with “good headache”

Over the ages, the India-Pakistan rivalry has been characterised as India’s batting against Pakistan’s bowling, with one side having an abundance of world-class batsmen, and the other blessed with untold bowling riches.

On Sunday, when they face off at Edgbaston in Birmingham for their ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Group B match, though, it will be different.

While Pakistan’s One-Day International performances have been up and down of late, India has been pretty solid, as an ICC ranking of No. 3 suggests. And this time, India has a potent and pedigreed bowling attack too.

It is almost certain that all of Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav and Mohammed Shami won’t be playing together. The four form India’s best attack in ODIs in years, with each bringing something different to the table. How to pick and choose from among them, in addition to the spin twins R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja and the all-round option that Hardik Pandya offers, has been onVirat Kohli’s mind for the last few days.

The Indian captain pointed out that all bowlers had done well, which made selection difficult. “I think that's been on my mind in the last five-six days,” said Kohli on Saturday. “You know, who to play, because in both the games all the guys have bowled beautifully and the attack looks really balanced. But Hardik comes into the equation as an all-rounder, so you can only play four bowlers apart from him.

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“There are all kinds of possibilities – two spinners, two fast bowlers, three fast bowlers, Hardik and a spinner. So we'll see what the wicket is like and what we feel is going to match up well against the opposition,” he went on. “Accordingly, we'll pick our best bowling attack. The team looks really balanced. We're feeling really confident as a team. And that's showing how we're playing in the warm-up games (India won against New Zealand and Bangladesh comfortably). The intensity was right up there, and that's something that was really nice to see for me as a captain. It's a good headache to have.”

Kohli revealed that he had watched the earlier Australia-New Zealand match at the same venue, and expected the pitch to be a batting-friendly one.

“The game I saw yesterday, the ball was coming on pretty nicely,” he said. “The wicket was really hard and the batsmen were enjoying themselves. The bowlers found it difficult, and that's why I think New Zealand had different fields in the Power Play at the beginning of the game. So that becomes a big factor in terms of, especially the bowling attack, where you're going to execute what you want to and how to contain the batsmen.

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“I don't think in shorter-format cricket any total is safe in this day and age. A series against England we chased down 350-360 for 4, those kind of situations you could not think of before; 300 was a competitive total. And if you lost four wickets the game was almost done. You can never tell. Some people, if they have a good day, a couple of batsmen can chase down anything. There's nothing safe in this day and age.”

One man who will have Kohli’s ear before, during and after the match is MS Dhoni, his predecessor. Kohli said that he still leaned on Dhoni for advice often, and termed the former captain’s inputs ‘priceless’, while lauding his reading of the game.

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“It's priceless to have his thoughts and views on different situations. The things that he picks up are really small, but they make a massive difference in the course of the game or tournament. Identifying who is probably in a better mindset to do a certain job is something that he's always been a master at, and I keep seeking his advice every now and then to make sure that what I'm thinking is on the right path.

“Obviously we won't agree to everything, but more often than not we end up agreeing to the same thing because we're thinking in the same manner, which is to make the team win regardless of what we sort of plan.”