India’s captain Virat Kohli has admitted to being disappointed after rain denied his team a chance to go 2-0 up against South Africa, but said his squad’s mindset was still positive
Karthik Krishnaswamy in Bangalore18-Nov-20153:42
‘Nothing has changed from Mohali’ – Kohli
India are 1-0 up at the halfway point of a four-Test series against the No. 1 side in the world. Under normal circumstances, Virat Kohli would probably be pleased with the scoreline. But having won the first Test inside three days and ended the first day of the second Test in a hugely advantageous position, Kohli was frustrated that rain denied his side a shot at 2-0.”It was very disappointing,” Kohli said, after a fourth successive cricket-free day at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. “The second and third day were especially very frustrating because we had a very good first day. The toughest task is to set up a Test match and then you have to win the important moments later on.”We were on course to do that, to get control of the important moments of the game and capitalise. We had a good chance of putting South Africa under more pressure, but as I said the weather turned out to be in such a way that we had no control over it for the course of the next four days. It is always annoying for any side to come to the ground and have no play. The covers come off and the rain falls again. I think that was something that was disappointing.”Kohli felt India could have put South Africa under pressure even if rain had relented just enough to allow two more days of play.”If we had proper two days of play even from fourth day to the end of the fifth day, we were still looking at it as a positive where we can bat for a full day and try to get as many runs as possible and then put pressure on the opposition. I am not saying that we would have certainly bowled them out, but you can actually put them under pressure even if we had two more days of play. That’s how well we played on day one and that gave us the liberty to think of something like that on the fourth and fifth day.”The rain ruled out even that possibility, but Kohli said it hadn’t dampened his side’s spirits or dissipated any of the momentum they had built.”The momentum, I don’t see any change in that, the mood is absolutely the same that we had in Mohali. We had a really positive day one, bowled the No. 1 side out in under three sessions, bowled them out on a decent batting wicket, there were no demons in the wicket I can say for sure. And we batted pretty well in whatever time we had in the middle. Shikhar [Dhawan] getting some runs was a big positive as well.”All in all, we had been in a very good space and we have maintained that. Even in the last four days, we haven’t really thought about what the rain is going to do, we have just reacted to how the weather has turned out which is very, very important. Thinking about the weather can put you off, which the team has not done, so I would like to give credit to the guys to still stay in the zone. Nothing has changed in the last four days at all.”At stumps on day one, India were 80 for no loss in response to South Africa’s 214, with Shikhar Dhawan batting on 45. Dhawan had failed twice in Mohali, and was coming off middling form in the ODI series that preceded the Tests, but Kohli didn’t feel he was coming out of a lean patch. Keeping the formats separate, he harked back to the hundreds Dhawan had made in his last two Tests before this series, in Fatullah and Galle.”If you call scoring two hundreds in three Test matches struggling then I don’t know what ‘in form’ is,” Kohli said. “[Dhawan’s] last three matches, he has got a hundred in Galle, he has got a hundred in Bangladesh, unfortunately he got injured after and he played first Test match after that in Mohali.”So let’s not be too hard on someone because of two innings or three innings. This is international cricket, you are going to play numerous innings and we have to be patient with players like Shikhar because he is an impact player and we need to give him as much confidence as we possibly can. When he gets going he wins you the game, that is a surety.”I don’t think he has been out of form at all, he has been batting beautifully. Sometimes you will not get the scores that you desire, but it is important how you are playing at that moment. He is certainly hitting the ball very well, and as I said he got runs here, which is good for his mental set-up. We don’t see any issues with his batting or his confidence for sure. We have to let the individual sort of come into his own, not to put too much pressure on him.”We have to be patient with players like Shikhar because he is an impact player and we need to give him as much confidence as we can” – Virat Kohli•Associated Press
“I am sure he is happy with the way he batted here as well, if he had more overs to bat he would have been 70 or 80 not out or possibly could have got a hundred as well if we had some amount of the game left. He is that sort of player who can take the game away very quickly. I am delighted that he is feeling good about his batting at the moment and I am sure he would want to score big runs in this series and in future as well, every batsman wants to.”Having played five specialist bowlers in Mohali, India left out one of their spinners and brought in Stuart Binny to play the role of a seam-bowling allrounder after weighing in the conditions in Bangalore. Kohli said the presence of multi-skilled players such as Binny and Gurkeerat Singh – who was called into the squad on the eve of the second Test – allowed India a certain amount of bowling depth in any kind of conditions.”[Binny] is an allrounder who can bowl you really consistent medium-pace and can be very handy with the bat,” Kohli said. “Then we have Gurkeerat. [Ravindra] Jadeja is potentially the right kind of allrounder for us. It’s just about being in a confident zone. We can play him as a frontline spinner or an allrounder as well. That depends on what sort of space an individual is in. I think you have to choose an allrounder according to the conditions.”You can’t be stubborn about saying ‘This guy has ability and he will do the right kind of job in every condition’. Some people will be more effective in different conditions. I’ve mentioned in the past, this team is all about flexibility.”We did not play Amit Mishra here, and he has been bowling really well in the last few months. But he understood that we probably needed someone like Stuart in these conditions. Because Bangalore always tends to do something on the last couple of days, that is the feedback we got from the guys who have played here and guys who have bowled on this pitch. There’s no set combinations in this team. Everyone is ready to play at any stage and willing to perform for the team, which is a positive sign.”With less than four full days of cricket possible in the first two Tests, and given that the first Test was a low-scoring game, India’s batsmen haven’t had too much of a chance to play themselves into form yet. Kohli didn’t think this was a concern going into the third Test.”Not at all. As I said, everyone is in a good space. It doesn’t matter, you know. You don’t need to put a certain number or score in front of your name to make sure you make an impact. Someone scoring 30 runs also [can make an impact].”You take Jadeja’s knock of 38 [in Mohali]. Nobody talks about it but it was as important as [Cheteshwar] Pujara’s and [M] Vijay’s runs in the course of the Test match, seeing the first innings and how it went. [Wriddhiman] Saha’s [20] in the second innings was as crucial as [the runs made by] Pujara and Vijay early on because that gives you a competitive target.”This team is not worried about personal performances or putting numbers in front of names. We just want to go out there and win a Test. And if we feel someone makes an impact, even if he makes a 30, we surely let him know that ‘your knock was as important’, so that he knows he is making an impact for the team.”We need to find the right balance between batting and bowling. You certainly need that to win a Test match and that’s exactly what we did in Mohali. Day one here was a balance of both as well. I’m sure when you get going, any batsman wants to make it big like I said. And everyone is in that zone of performing for the team firstly and not worry about themselves getting to a hundred or fifty. That’s the most pleasing thing about the confidence and mindset of this team right now.”