Honoured to be part of this team: Kohli

Virat Kohli wanted to finish the series on a high and was undoubtedly chuffed after Amit Mishra's six-wicket haul set up a 5-0 sweep for India over Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. The reigning world champions tried out as many as four debutants in the series and besides Cheteshwar Pujara, the other three made a solid impact. Kohli, who was handed the task of leading India in MS Dhoni's absence appeared pleased with the efforts and said he was honoured to be part of a team that was keen to prove itself at the big stage. Zimbabwe's bowlers did test the Indian top-order in the first two games and their batsmen did well to get off to solid starts but the young visitors did well to overcome the initial challenges and claim India's first ODI whitewash overseas. "The first two games were well fought out by Zimbabwe. The boys stepped up in the next three games and I am pretty happy that everything went well. We wanted to seal the series firstly and then think about the changes in the XI. Duncan discussed with me and the moves worked well for us. "We believe in ourselves. All the 11 players believe that they can win every game. It has been an honour to be a part of this team and lead the side. It is not difficult as a captain as they are a talented bunch. They grab their opportunities. I just try to take responsibility as much as I can with this young team. It is a lot different to lead this side compared to the under-19 side and I am glad that we won the series," Kohli said. Kohli's own form was top notch. The Indian skipper scored his 15th century in the first game of the series before slamming an unbeaten half-century in the third. He shuffled his batsmen around and let all of the top-order get a fair hit in the middle. Suresh Raina was promoted up the order in the fourth match, Dinesh Karthik batted in challenging conditions, Ambati Rayudu found himself in the middle early on his debut while Ravindra Jadeja was pushed up the order in the final game, allowing every Indian batsman to return at least one good score. Overall, it would have been a satisfying tour for the number one ODI side in the world. For Zimbabwe, it was a reality check. They were completely outplayed in all departments and captain Brendan Taylor was left ruing some very poor performances. They would need to pull up their socks sooner rather than later with Pakistan scheduled to visit them for a full series. Taylor admitted his side did very little to be proud of, with his own form hitting rock bottom. He bagged as many as three ducks out of the five matches and exposed an inexperienced middle-order to some high-quality bowling. "It has been a tough series for us. We've been outplayed by a top team. Unfortunately not many positives for us from this series. Hopefully we will recover quickly from this. We face Pakistan next. There is a bit of a gap and we will try and use that to get better. We need to prepare mentally and that is something that we would like to work on. The bowlers can hold their heads high and I think the batsmen let them down," Taylor said after the match. Mishra, who finished with 18 wickets, won his second Man of the Match award, thanks to his 6/48 and he said it helped that Zimbabwe's batsmen failed to pick his googlies. "I feel good and I did a lot of hard work and everything paid off. The wicket helped me, they didn't pick my googly and that helped me a lot. I just went for wickets. We have a long time to rest and hopefully I will get better."