Virat Kohli extends his support for struggling MS Dhoni

Despite chasing a minuscule total of 190 runs in the fourth match in Antigua, India lost crucial wickets towards the end and fell 11 short of the target. But what was worse was the fact that MS Dhoni, known for his aggressive batting skills, batted for close to 34 overs, but still failed to guide India home. However, Kohli was quick to brush aside the concerns regarding Dhoni’s batting. 

Kohli, who scored a match-winning century in the fifth game yesterday, said, "It was only in the last game where he couldn't rotate the strike. Before that he got a brilliant 70-80 odd not out. In the Champions Trophy against Sri Lanka, he played a brilliant knock. In the first game as well, he played a brilliant knock here when it wasn't rained out and we won the game.”

“You don't have to tell him anything, he is striking the ball beautifully. I think we get too impatient with one game or one knock. That can happen to anyone. Any batsman can struggle, any batsman can get stuck in the crease, even if you are in top form. I don't think there's any issue, there have been good knocks around it and the strike-rate is close to 100, if not over 100. So not bothered by anything at all," the 28-year-old added.

When a scribe put the question to Kohli about the fact that Dhoni hadn’t been practising big shots in the nets either, Kohli replied back saying the nets wicket in the Windies was not at all easy to bat on and said that even he was struggling to connect well in the nets. 

“See you have to understand the sort of wickets you are playing on as well,” said Kohli. “I was trying to hit the spinners couple of days back during practice and I couldn’t because the wickets were not that great to play your strokes. The wicket in the centre was much better, but you can’t really judge a guy’s batting form at practice because you don’t know what kind of wickets you are going to get. If the bounce is not ideal then you have to just keep rotating the strike.”