Test for India to focus amid Kohli outburst
Rest and recovery have been the buzz words for the Indian cricket team here in the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup, but Virat Kohli's vengeful tirade against a senior journalist after Tuesday's practice session has meant the time away from the game and media glare they had been hoping for have been erased. The team has been carefully managing its training sessions, taking rest days in between long breaks before games, but keeping the media away will now be an added issue that has befallen them.
Members of the Indian team utilized their rest day by hitting the beach in Perth where they engaged in a game of beach volleyball, the BCCI tweeting their activity from its official account in a bid to take the attention away from another controversy. This was after an attempt to quash reports that took up a lot of print space back home fell flat when a statement from the board's media manager stated that "there was no abusive language used" and that the "matter ends".
The already-strained relationship between players and the media has not taken away from the fact that the team has been off to its best start in World Cups, having won all their opening three games, and they have a chance to do one better against the West Indies on Friday. Another training session awaits the team a day before Friday's game, and it will be interesting to see which member of the team attends the press conference.
The daily, whose reporter was at the receiving end of Kohli's rage, has lodged an official complaint to the ICC, an incident that threatens to put their title defence off course. While the batsmen and bowlers have done exceedingly well over the last three games, there is fine-tuning left to be done especially while batting in the last ten overs of the innings.
India captain MS Dhoni had explained that the reason behind the improvement shown by his bowlers could be down to them finally getting used to the conditions in Australia, which has prompted them to bowl better lines and lengths. Pacer Mohammed Shami, who was rested for the game against the UAE on Saturday, returned to the bowling mark in practice on Tuesday, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar's return to competitive cricket would have created a happy conundrum for the Indian captain.
Dhoni had revealed the reason behind India's poor performance leading up to the World Cup was due to the fact that they didn't want to exhaust their players ahead of the World Cup, before India's team director Ravi Shastri told PTI that the having the tri-series just ahead of the World Cup was a "sheer waste of time and energy". Conserving their energies seems to have done them good as India have begun their title defence rather impressively.
Like in Adelaide and Melbourne, where they chose to train away from the main venue, India's players used the Murdoch University ground on Tuesday to practice at the main wicket, having fielders all around the bat while bowlers bowled off a full run-up. They will return to practice at the WACA nets on Thursday, and all their attempts to keep the distractions away will be tested after this latest incident.
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