Our duty is to give our 100 percent, says Virat Kohli ahead of South Africa tour

Under Kohli's captaincy, Team India have been playing some exceptional cricket in all the formats of the game. In the last away series against Sri Lanka, India inflicted a 9-0 whitewash across all three formats - three Tests, five ODIs, and one T20I. It was followed by success against Australia and New Zealand at home in the limited-overs format and they again emerged victorious against Sri Lanka in the home series. Now, Team India’s next challenge is the South Africa tour where India failed to win a single Test series in the past 25 years.

Kohli has led India in 32 Tests so far, 31 since taking over officially from MS Dhoni in January 2015. Since that tour of Australia, India haven’t played abroad apart from in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (2015), the Caribbean (2016) and Sri Lanka (2017). That makes the tour of South Africa Kohli’s first big overseas assignment in charge and the batting unit, especially, will be in the firing line against the South African pace battery. But Kohli believes that mindset is important in resurrecting the perception of the Indian team.

"You need to take up challenges mentally and then every conditions seem like home conditions. If you get accustomed to where you are going and you start feeling comfortable embracing the culture, people, it becomes easier," he explained.

In South Africa, Virat played two Tests in 2013 where he scored 272 runs at an average of 68.00 including one century and one fifty. Apart from the skipper, Ajinkya Rahane had also played two Tests scoring 209 runs including two half-centuries while Cheteshwar Pujara has more experience in comparison to both as he played four Tests and in seven innings, he managed to score 311 runs at an average of 44.42.

Under Kohli’s guidance, Team India will be on verge of creating a history of becoming the first team who win ten consecutive Test series. During the series against Sri Lanka, they equalize with Australia who hold the record of nine consecutive Test series wins. Kohli admitted that they haven’t a lot outside the sub-continent region but believed that the current crop will perform well.

"We are talking about a wholly different prospect over here, which we understand as a team and we are looking forward to it. Every tour is a chance, if you look at the teams which have gone to South Africa in the past, I mean you are talking about some of the biggest names in Indian cricket, it's not like that was not like a chance," Kohli sounded cautiously optimistic.

Last time when India visited South Africa in 2013, the South African pace attack was led by Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel and the hosts won the two-Test match series by 1-0. However, the hosts are more settled than ever this time around having players like Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander in their ranks.  

"The bowling attack back then compared to now what South Africa has was more experienced and we did really well against them. We almost won the Test in Jo'burg (Johannesburg), it was a close game, we lost in Durban, but we played some really good Test cricket.