Mumbai: Indian skipper Virat Kohli on Saturday said that the ODIs now would be more professional and exciting thanks to the new playing rules.
India’s three-match ODI series against New Zealand, scheduled to begin on Sunday, would be it’s first under the new ICC ODI rules and regulations.
“There are few rules which are very different. The batsman reaching the crease and after that the bat bouncing off being not out. The rule of umpires’ call in DRS (Decision Review System). So there are few rule changes which are quite interesting. There is one about catching as well,” said Virat Kohli, at a press conference.
He added, “But it’s a good thing, new regulations will makes things much more exciting and bit more professional I guess. You have to keep in mind a lot of things while you are on the field and this just adds to that and helps you focus more on what needs to be done during the course of a game.”
Under the new regulations, the teams will not lose a DRS review if a leg-before referral ends up as, “Umpire’s Call.” This change has also removed the earlier system of reviews being renewed after 80 overs in Test cricket.
Now, the umpires can send off a player for misconduct on the field and all other offenses would fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC Code of Conduct. Restrictions would also be applied on the bat size (thickness of edges and depth of the bat) and also another interesting change is that a batsman would now, not be run-out if his bat is still in the air after he has entered the crease.
While India’s win on Sunday would propell them back to the top of the ODI rankings, Kohli didn’t wish to look too much into that as he believes that rankings do not matter.
Just a day ago, South Africa toppled India to reach to the top of the ODI rankings.
Said Kohli, “We don’t think of rankings. Points are tied. We had a rest period, South Africa are playing games in that period, so you can’t really pinpoint some things, you can’t be frustrated sitting at home that your ranking is gone and stuff like that.”
He also said, “We just want to play good cricket, we’ve been playing good cricket and that continues to be our main goal. We are really happy with what we are doing as a team at the moment. These things will go up and down because not all teams play together.”
Kohli further stated that contributions made for the cause of the team’s win is all that matters at the end of the day. South Africa’s AB De Villiers too reached to the top of the rankings for ODI batsmen, surpassing Kohli.
“As I said, even for batsmen you play at different stages, someone goes up in points someone doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, you have to contribute towards the team’s win. Rankings, ratings all these things are definitely incentives of doing well, but that’s not the ultimate goal,” said Kohli.
India would play the last two matches of the series in Pune and Kanpur on October 25 and 29 respectively.
Kohli also came out in support of the selectors’ decision to, ‘rest’ ace spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja as he said that this would not only reduced the workload on the main bowlers but also would strengthen the pool of players from where selections would be made.
“We need to find out best bowling combinations before the World Cup, we always had in mind to bring wrist spinners. We didn’t want to play both together but now it’s too tempting considering the way they have been playing. It’s also about rhythm and understanding the workload of the bowlers. Ashwin and Jadeja have been playing for the past 6-7 years. We also have to see how much we expose certain bowlers who play for us across formats.”
He also opened up on the axing of KL Rahul from the national team as the skipper as quoted by Cricket Next said, “We look to give chances to players who have the ability to perform at this level. At the same time, we have to strike a right balance between youth and experience. DK has come in for KL, because we didn’t want a situation that happened with Jinx (Rahane). He was forced to bat in the middle-order, KL has usually opened for the state team while Karthik bats regularly in the middle-order.”