“Virat Kohli ko confidence ki zaroorat hai? Kya baat kar rahe ho yaar?…” (Virat Kohli needs confidence? What are you talking about, mate?)

India’s limited overs captain Rohit Sharma laughed when asked whether Kohli’s lack of form was a concern for the team. After scoring two half-centuries in three matches, Kohli had a dismal outing at home against the West Indies, scoring just 26 runs in three games.

But Rohit made it clear that his form was not a matter of concern for the team management. “It’s a different matter that he did get a hundred, but in the series against South Africa, he scored two half-centuries. I don’t think there is anything wrong. The team management is not worried at all,” Rohit said after India completed a clean sweep against the West Indies on Friday.

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“What we were worried about was the fact that how will we challenge the middle overs, but our middle-order batting in this series was very good. We batted according to the conditions and we had spoken about it for a long time that the middle-order does not get too many opportunities, but in this series, middle-order batted well. It was a positive as a team, going forward,” the captain said.

Indicating at the road map for the future, Rohit said: “We are looking for a lot of these individuals to step up and deliver in difficult situations. We saw the way Shreyas Iyer batted, Rishabh Pant came out and put up that score. Deepak Chahar, Washington Sundar – they all batted brilliantly…

“What was good to see in this series was different guys taking up responsibility, doing their job for the team and finishing the game. In the bowling department, it was contributed by everyone, and the batting department, the middle-order stepped up and did the job for us. It’s a good sign,” he added.

In the series, pacer Prasidh Krishna claimed nine wickets and Rohit admitted that he was impressed by his bowling. “Look, honestly I cannot tell you about test cricket. But, certainly he has impressed everyone with his bowling in this particular series. We were looking for someone like him to come out and bowl those overs in the middle and get us those breakthroughs, and we saw that clearly, the way he bowled in the last two games, with a lot of pace. We could see that he was getting something out of the pitch as well…”

“From the team’s perspective, it is a good sign that he was able to come out and do that (bowl well). He is definitely a prospect for the future, no doubt about that,” the skipper said.