Indian skipper Virat Kohli praises England Test skipper Joe Root who is playing his 100th test match while playing against India.
Virat Kohli praises Joe Root
Joe Root set to play his 100th Test match while playing the 1st Test match against India at Chennai.
“A big congratulations to Joe, playing 100 Tests is no small achievement and he can be very proud of this journey,” said Kohli, on the eve of the 1st Test.
But that’s not all. Kohli went on to praise the 30-year-old who, according to the Indian captain, is the ‘face of England cricket’.
“I have good memories of watching Joe come on to the international scene and he probably got off to a headstart compared to the other three in that group of four. He’s someone who has really become that face of England’s batting over the years,” Kohli added.
“The talk of ‘big four’ is all created by the media, but as an international cricketer you understand impact players when you see them and Joe has been one of them for a while now. As opposition you always try and disrupt the opposition batting plans and, when we play England, Joe is always that vital wicket that we look to get early on in the innings,” he said.
“That is a compliment to his game, to the longevity and consistency over so many years. Hopefully, in the future, we can sit down and have a nice long chat about how our journeys have gone and played each other over so many years.”
Kohli’s heap of praise on Root showcases the bigger picture wherein each of the ‘Big Four’ members have come forward to back each other. Besides Kohli and Root, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and Australia’s star batsman Steve Smith constitute the ‘Big Four’ of this generation in cricket.
Root, ahead of the Chennai Test, has come forward and said that instead of picking up of individual battles, his journey of improvement along the way entails following the careers of Kohli, Smith, and Williamson.
“It is silly not to watch how they go about things … how they manage their own games and keep evolving and getting better all the time, and then try and add that to my own game,” Root said on the eve of the 1st Test.
“In terms of those individual battles, for me, that’s not the most important thing. It’s not something that I will look at, what I will look at is always trying to win this series.”
And then there’s the New Zealand skipper, who is loved by one and all among cricket fans, who reflects the same ideology as his Big Gour counterparts.
“The other three players that you mentioned [in Big Four], world-class and I certainly admire the way they go about their cricket. You can always learn a lot from those sorts of players, especially they are all different, that’s the kind of the beauty of the game, you got so many fantastic players that are trying to move the game forward,” Williamson told Sports Today.
