Kohli banks on batting to deliver expectations

Virat Kohli, the captain of India's Under-19 squad for the World Cup, may still be in his teens but he's already aware of the kind of spotlight an Indian cricketer faces when playing on the international stage. As the team prepared to depart for Malaysia, Kohli said India were "expected to be favourites" and hoped to fulfill those expectations - backed by a strong batting line-up and a bolstered attack - during the 15-day tournament.

The squad spent the last week at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore, fine-tuning their preparations under the guidance of Dav Whatmore, who will be their coach for the tournament. Kohli said the team had worked hard on their fielding skills, which he felt needed to be improved, during the camp and the time spent together had helped build team-spirit.

India have had a successful run in the lead-up to Malaysia. They won a Youth Test series in South Africa 1-0 as well as a triangular limited-overs tournament involving South Africa, who are grouped with India in the World Cup, and Bangladesh. The batsmen performed impressively in the tri-series, with Kohli, Saurav Tiwary, Tanmay Srivatsava and Manish Pandey all averaging above 50.

"We have a deep batting line-up and most often our No.7 and No.8 batsmen have not had a chance to bat on the last two or three tours. So batting is a big strength," Kohli said. "The fast bowling was lacking on the last tour so we've got more fast bowlers to strengthen that area."

India's group also includes West Indies and Papua New Guinea and their practice-matches before the main tournament kicks off will be against two teams Kohli considered among the toughest in the competition - New Zealand and England.

"We know most of the England team and the New Zealand team, which are the difficult teams. We don't know much about Pakistan because I think the team has changed. But we've seen South Africa, England and New Zealand which are the strongest teams, so we know about them."

For most of the team, the World Cup will be their first experience of playing in front of a television audience. Kohli, however, said that thinking about factors such as television would only add to the pressure. "You don't have to think about it much," Kohli said. "We just have to play like we have been playing on the last four or five tours. We've been winning all the tours so we would like to keep up the winning streak."

While Kohli and his team-mates are thinking of the immediate future, and how it could be the launching pad for future international careers, their coach is able to look at the larger picture. The challenge, Whatmore said, was to "create the right pathways and competitions for the youngsters to come through."