Kolkata: Ahead of India’s first test in this home season, skipper Virat Kohli said on Wednesday that he’ll ask for rest when he feels that he needs it.
Earlier, rumours were doing the rounds that Kohli had asked for rest after the second Test against Sri Lanka and also for the ODI series after that. But chief selector MSK Prasad later rubbished all rumours saying that the captain has made himself available for selection for the entire series and also that they would consider resting him after that.
On the eve of the first Test against Sri Lanka in Kolkata, Kohli while interacting with the reporters said, “Definitely I do need rest, why don’t I need rest? When I think of the time my body should be rested, I’ll ask for it. I am not a robot you can slice my skin and check I bleed.”
When the 29-year-old was asked about managing the workload of the team, especially with all-rounder Hardik Pandya being rested for the first two Test matches, the skipper said that the players who put in that extra amount of hard work on the field needs rest and that sometimes people do not understand this situation.
Said the skipper, “This is one thing which I don’t think people explain properly. There is a lot of talk from the outside in terms of workload — whether a player should be rested or should not be rested. All cricketers play 40 games in a year. Three guys who should get rest, their workloads are to be managed. 11 players play the game but not everyone would have batted 45 overs in an ODI game or not everyone would have bowled 30 overs in a Test match.”
“But the ones who are doing it regularly need to be assessed because the body takes that much time to recover. People only look at ‘oh everyone has played 40 games’. They don’t look at time spent on the crease.
“The number of runs that have been run between the wicket, the number of overs bowled in difficult conditions, what were the conditions, what were the temperatures like, have the bodies recovered or not — I don’t think people go into that analysis. So from the outside it looks like ‘why are people asking for rest, everyone has played same number of games’.
“But not everyone has the same kind of workload in every game. Only those who have major workload, for example Pujara during a Test season he will have maximum workload because he spends so much time at the crease. His game is built that way. So you can’t compare that to a counter-attacking batsman, because the workload would have been lesser.
“So I think all these things have to be taken into consideration. Purely because of the fact that we have built such a strong core team now of 20-25 players, you don’t want important players breaking down at important times for the team,” explained Kohli.
The 24-year-old Pandya has been a cog in the wheel for the Indian team in recent times and he has featured in 30 matches for the national team across all formats since the Champions Trophy and he also said in a recent interview that he was the one who had asked for rest to recover from a few niggles.
The skipper said that the way to manage workload is to maintain a balance between players who need rest and who do not.
“That is where balance needs to be maintained going forward. If you have too much cricket going on, with guys who play all three formats, it’s humanly impossible to maintain the same level of performance, what you do earlier in the season. Those details are very important while managing workload,” said Kohli.