India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni will miss the first Commonwealth Bank Test against Australia due to a thumb injury.
Dhoni batted and bowled at India’s training session Sunday here, but he is not yet ready to keep wickets in a Test.
Virat Kohli confirmed Monday he will lead the side Tuesday, when the four-Test series starts at the Adelaide Oval.
“Yes, I will be leading tomorrow,” Kohli was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia (CA) website.
“We expect (Dhoni) to be 100 percent fit in the next few days. We want him to be 100 percent before he plays a game.”
Kohli vowed to fight fire with fire in his first Test as Indian captain, and backed his pacemen to cause Australia’s batsmen some trouble.
“This is one of the best bowling attacks we’ve had in a while,” he said. “(We have) guys who are bowling with pace and they’re fit.”
Asked about combating Mitchell Johnson, who claimed 37 wickets in the 2013-14 Ashes series, Kohli noted his side couldn’t focus on one man.
“We’re not giving it too much importance,” he said. “There’s nothing very special about a particular individual or a few individuals.”
Kohli attended Phillip Hughes’s funeral last Wednesday and suggested the 25-year-old’s death had mentally hit his squad hard. But the middle-order batsman said they had found a way to quickly focus on training.
“You have to move on with the game and we don’t want to be in a position where we’re lacking in preparation going into the first Test,” he said.
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