In the post-match press conference, Virat Kohli cleared the air over his participation in the upcoming three-ODI series against South Africa under the captaincy of KL Rahul. Earlier, there were reports that Kohli will fly back to India and miss the ODI series due to personal reasons.
"I'm looking forward to the ODIs. I don't think what happened here will be taken forward. We weren't mauled. We were competitive. We didn't throw in the towel. We know what we're capable of,” Kohli clarified while talking to the media in a virtual press conference from Cape Town.
Kohli was recently sacked from ODI captaincy which created controversy as the 33-year-old claimed lack of communication during an explosive press conference as he falsified Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President Sourav Ganguly and chairman of selection committee Chetan Chauhan.
Rohit Sharma was named the new ODI captain of the side whereas an injury forced him out of the South Africa tour. In his absence, vice-captain KL Rahul was given the responsibility to lead the team in the 50-over format.
On India’s previous tour of South Africa, Kohli was phenomenal with the bat scoring 558 runs from six ODIs at an average of 186 including three centuries and one half-century. While the 71st international century has continued to elude the Delhi-born batter for over 25 months, Kohli has not had a bad time in 50-over cricket compared to the red-ball format. He has scored 649 runs from 15 appearances at an average of 43.26 including eight half-centuries.
After losing their seventh Test series on South African soil, India will play the Proteas in the first ODI starting January 21 at Boland Park, Paarl. This will also be the first time Kohli will be donning the coloured jersey after getting sacked as India’s ODI skipper.
India’s ODI squad: KL Rahul (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Shikhar Dhawan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wk), Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Prasidh Krishna, Shardul Thakur, Md. Siraj, Jayant Yadav, Navdeep Saini
