PTI | Dubai
A visibly irritated India captain Virat Kohli said it would not have been the end of the world for him even if his team had won instead of suffering a heavy defeat to arch-rivals Pakistan in the T20 World Cup here on Sunday.
Pakistan recorded their biggest T20 International win, hammering India by 10 wickets in their opening T20 World Cup match, which was also their first against the neighbours in 13 attempts at the global meet.
However, when Kohli was asked if his team was over-confident and wasn’t thinking about the Pakistan game, it did get his goat.
“You know it’s amazing what reality is and what people have ideas on the outside. I just wish they could put on a cricket kit and understand what pressure is,” Kohli told a Pakistani scribe who had asked the question.
“You don’t go out there to take anything lightly, specially a team like Pakistan who can beat any team in the world on their day, This is a game that has to be respected and we are a team which doesn’t think that winning one game is the end of the world,” the angry Indian captain said after the match.
Kohli said he accepts the defeat and will take the learnings from it but made it clear that he has treated all opposition with equal respect.
“Cricket is beyond and above anyone else and we definitely respect game and we never take any opposition lightly and neither do we differentiate between opposition.
“On the day, if we haven’t played good, we accept it and give credit to opposition as well. We don’t create any other scenarios of knowing what went wrong and correct that move forward in a positive manner,” he said.
