Kohli: Bangladesh have good batsmen in their ranks

Winning run continues against Bangladesh

I do not think it's because of me, everyone at the international level wants to do well. We are playing as a team and that’s been the difference, if you see. You can say probably (in) 2016, I scored a lot of runs but before that, in 2015 as well, we won a lot of matches. I didn’t score many runs but the other guys stepped up and scored runs. So their confidence was rubbing off on me and that’s how you play as a team. And that’s why we stand where we are. Guys who have man of the match performances are usually in focus than the guys who don’t have those performances but in the context of the game, they get two set batsmen out and the whole game opens up for the guy who becomes man of the match. We focus on those things and give credit to those guys, and I think that’s been the plus point of our team where everyone has contributed in the past few series that we have played.

Surprised with Bangladesh's fightback?

No. As I said it was a good wicket to bat on and if you play basic cricket, you can score runs on this kind of wicket. I didn’t expect them to get out for 200, 250 runs. They do have good batsmen in their ranks. They scored 580 in New Zealand, so you know this was a good wicket to bat on and they would have some confidence coming into the series. That’s what they showed. As I said we want to focus on ourselves, as a team, but I was not surprised at all. They surely put up a fight in the first innings of the game.

Own batting

The idea was to play with five batters with [Wriddhiman] Saha and that makes it six, so you have to take extra responsibility. As I said, the wicket was really good to bat on, and I didn’t expect myself to get 200 (204) off 240 (246) balls. Usually, I take more time. Wicket allowed me to play my shots. I played percentage cricket, so it was good to get into that rhythm, playing few shorter format games. It was really important to get into the rhythm going into a big series against Australia. I feel good about where my game stands, and hopefully I can take it forward.