‘It was a complete day’: Virat Kohli on his unbeaten match-winning century against West Indies

India captain Virat Kohli shrugged off his indifferent form in the Caribbean with a fluent unbeaten century on Thursday at Jamaica as his side pocketed the One-day International series 3-1. Once again, the Indian bowlers stifled the West Indian batsmen, restricting them to a modest 205/9, which the visitors chased down with nearly 13 overs to spare.

Kohli called his team’s performance “complete” and revealed that his pumped up celebrations after completing his 28th hundred stemmed from the satisfaction his batting plans falling into place, and combating his recent woes with short deliveries during the series, “Yeah, I don’t like to get out in similar fashion more often. The reason you succeed at international level is [that] you have to spread a gap between your mistakes, and a couple of mistakes from me getting out in the same manner [off short deliveries] was something that I don’t really like.

So, it was more of being a little strict on the self, and then getting the team across the line. I knew the victory was inevitable when I got the hundred. [The celebration] was all about the satisfaction of actually planning the innings out, sticking to my plans and executing it well,” Kohli said.

The 28-year-old, with his latest feat, went past batting icon Sachin Tendulkar’s record of 17 hundreds while chasing. He expressed that it was an “ideal scenario” for a batsman when there aren’t any chances on offer to the fielders. Kohli stated that bringing up his century on the back of two cheap dismissals only made it sweeter,

“When you’re not too happy with how you’re getting out, and then you end up convincingly scoring a century and remaining not-out, getting the team across the line, it’s the complete package for a batsman. You can’t have a more ideal scenario. When you have a chance-less knock as well, you haven’t given any half-chance either, so from that point of view, I felt it was a complete day from a personal point of view, and for the team as well,” Kohli said.

Kohli backs under-fire Dhoni

The knives were out on former India captain MS Dhoni after playing out an excruciating 114-ball 54 in a losing cause chasing a paltry 190-run total. Kohli, though, hit back at the recently turned 36-year-old, insisting that Dhoni has been striking the ball well, “I think it was only in the last game where he couldn’t rotate strike. Before that, he got a brilliant [78 not out]. In the Champions Trophy as well, against Sri Lanka he played a brilliant knock.

First game as well he played a brilliant knock [in the Caribbean] when it wasn’t rained out and we won the game. He’s striking the ball beautifully. I think we get too impatient with one game or one knock; that can happen to anyone.”

Kohli said that he aimed at taking the winning momentum into the only Twenty20 International against the reigning world champions. He said: “We look to play convincing cricket every game that we play. We have that ability in our team and we want to live up to our ability rather than proving a point to anyone or trying to outdo the opposition. We would like to stick to our strengths and execute those skills. If it comes off then it feels nice, because we feel we have the ability in the team to play good cricket consistently. Especially in the shorter format, we have been a very consistent side, and for sure we would like to take the momentum to Sunday as well.”

‘Confident with Kedar and Hardik’

When asked if he toyed with the idea of promoting lower-order batsmen Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya, the Indian captain said that the duo have to wait for their chances while calling them explosive batsmen who are “very eager to make dents”,

“You can’t make a Hardik [Pandya] or Kedar [Jadhav] bat at No. 3 and 4 and make your top-order batsman bat lower down. It’s still international cricket and you have to be respectful towards oppositions and whatever games that you play and its very important to understand what works for you as a team and you’ve got to keep sticking to it. We keep giving them confidence and both guys are very eager to make dents, which they have in the past, and we’re very confident of their abilities and we’re actually delighted to have found two lower order batsmen who can play that explosive cricket.

“Kedar’s knock, if you saw in that low-scoring game the other day, he made the difference when he came in the end, and Hardik’s knock in the Champions Trophy final and in the first game as well. So these guys can play impact innings for you. That won’t happen every now and then because of the strength we have in our batting. When they do get an opportunity, as I said they’ve been waiting for a while, they will get their opportunities, ideally we wouldn’t want them to get many opportunities early, but with 10-15 overs to go, I’m sure they’ll come up with the goods.”