Not worried about my batting position: Virat Kohli

India Test match skipper Virat Kohli turned some heads when he promoted himself up the order to bat at No. 3 ahead of the likes of Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane. Kohli stepped into the shoes of Cheteshwar Pujara who had been dropped after an uncharacteristically poor show in the previous Test at Kingston. Needless to say, Kohli failed miserably with the bat in St. Lucia as he failed to get past the single-figure mark in the match in both innings.

Rohit Sharma came into the side in place of Pujara for the third Test at St. Lucia. However, in spite of India winning, Sharma simply could not get going. Kohli added that the idea was to make Sharma bat in the number 5 position as well. “When I came at No 3 many people asked why I did it, but I am not fixated with my batting spot. If the team needs, I can open the batting too because that’s the rule applicable to everyone in the team,” said Kohli, post the victory.

“It’s not as if I will stay at No 4 and others will shuffle their positions. To field a player like Rohit Sharma we had to make him bat at No 5. To make that happen the other players will go one place up the order. That’s what we did,” the skipper said.

Speaking about his batting position, Kohli said, “I have batted everywhere for the Indian team, as low as Nos 5 and 6 even. Batting at No 3 comes more naturally to me because I have played 170-180 ODIs and I have batted 130 ODIs at No 3.

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“I don’t mind being into the game early. I’ve always been the kind of player who wants to get into the action quickly. So I don’t mind batting at this position too much,” said the captain.