Confident India take weather out of equation | Cricket News India & International, Match Schedule, Scores, Report and Ranking: WisdenIndia
But Kohli, for one, is not going to be worrying too much about the forecast. The Indian skipper revealed after the first Test that the team had in fact consciously not played to the threat of rain, keeping their game plan set to having a full day’s play. The reason, Kohli revealed, was how planning for rain had hurt India in the past.
“It’s been a pattern in the past where we’ve focussed too much on the rain and we haven’t focussed on the game that much and we’ve lost Test matches,” he said. “I remember one instance in Durban where we kept thinking it’s overcast and it might rain anytime, but it didn’t and we just lost focus on the game. (Dale) Steyn came in and bowled a spell of five wickets and we lost the Test match. We were in a very good position.”
Kohli was referring to India’s second and final Test on their short trip to South Africa in December 2013, where after a thrilling draw in the first Test in Johannesburg, India had begun strongly in Durban. But two Steyn bursts first reduced them from 198 for 1 to 199 or 4, and then from 320 for 5 to 334 all out, with the South African spearhead returning 6 for 100.
“We have stopped focussing on those things, we play according to how the game is going and not how the conditions will turn out,” went on Kohli. “Because that is not in our control, we can’t change plans according to what’s going to happen, whether it will happen or not. Two days back, there was a forecast of it being partly sunny, partly cloudy and it rained for two hours. You can never predict those things. Today as well it was cloudy in the morning but our focus was just to get those six wickets and not to worry about the rain. If it happens it happens, it’s not in our control. But we want to focus on what we can do on the field and look to execute that to the best of our abilities.”
