“If you lose players then world cricket is not going to be better off. So there has to be a balance in the future”

“We’ve spoken a lot about this [bubble life]. The good thing is we’ve played a tournament like the IPL,” Kohli said ahead of India’s T20 World Cup opener, against Pakistan. “Every day you have a new challenge in front of you. The tournament builds up and you are working towards a goal. Similarly, the World Cup too brings the same motivation, you are playing a multi-national event, you are playing against various teams – some of them you’ve never gotten a chance to play against. These things allow you to keep the focus.

“But going forward, I understand we’ve lost some time without cricket [during the pandemic] but in trying to cover that up, if you lose players then world cricket is not going to be better off. So there has to be a balance in the future. Players also have to be spoken to. In a bio-bubble, you can’t say which player is in what situation. Just because five-six players are laughing around , doesn’t mean all the 15-16 are feeling the same. It’s important to have communication with players and give them a period where they can mentally refresh themselves and come into such an environment once more to compete.”