London
\nIndia captain Virat Kohli conceded that team combination was \u201ca bit off\u201d in the lost second Test against England and urged his struggling batsmen to \u201ckeep it simple\u201d in the head to save the ongoing series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we got the combination a bit off before the game. We have a chance to correct that next game. (At) Two-nil down the only option is to come out positive, make it 2-1 and make it an exciting series from there,\u201d Kohli said after the team lost by an innings and 159 runs to be 0-2 down in the five-match series.<\/p>\n
India could only make 107 and 130 in the second Test and will need to avoid a loss in the third game\u2014due to start on August 18 in Nottingham\u2014to stay alive.<\/p>\n
Kohli reiterated that his batsmen\u2019s problem is more mental than technical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see any technical deficiency. If a batsman is clear in the head and he\u2019s clear about the plans he\u2019s taking, then if the ball does something off the pitch, you\u2019re able to counter it,\u201d said Kohli at the post-match media interaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf my head\u2019s clouded then I feel like the ball can do this, or that, or even that. You know there are three-four scenarios that run in your head. It sounds cliche but as the greats have said, keep this game simple, that\u2019s all you have to do. You can\u2019t come here and think the conditions are too difficult because they are really not if you\u2019re prepared to counter them.<\/p>\n
The weather also did not favour India, who batted in overcast conditions while England scored their runs in bright sunshine on day three.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people are talking about the conditions that we batted during a difficult time. On the day that was good, we had to bowl. And again, today was overcast and we had to bat. If we think about these things, we won\u2019t be able to plan for the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing to be gained from thinking about what has happened and thinking what if. Going ahead in this series, we need to look at the mistakes we\u2019ve made in this game and correct them. A sportsman has no other options,\u201d felt the captain.<\/p>\n
Bowlers did well in the series opener but were not consistent enough at Lord\u2019s, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t control the toss or the weather. We didn\u2019t play good cricket in this game. We bowled well in the beginning but didn\u2019t hit our areas consistently. We didn\u2019t get enough chances in the field to miss any, but with bat and ball we could have done much better than we did.\u201d During the second innings, Kohli batted at number five as his back problems resurfaced. The star batsman was hopeful that he would be fit in time for the next match.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack is one thing that can be very tricky when it goes off. It happened during the latter half of the last leg of the South Africa tour when I missed a T20 game because that was very sudden. It happened one day before. The good thing is I have five days before the next Test.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are confident with rehab and strengthening I should be ready for the next game although not (with) the same intensity in the field. But I should be good enough to hold a position in the field and be 100 per cent with the bat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain I will have to look at the running bit of things, which was difficult today. As of now it is sore. I am not hiding that fact, but that is part of the game. I had to do what I could do to go there, bat again and try my best,\u201d said the skipper.<\/p>\n
There are problems across the board for India, as their openers failed in both Birmingham and Lord\u2019s, while barring Kohli, the middle-order didn\u2019t turn up either. Kohli said that no particular batsman could be blamed for this failure.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, it\u2019s not purely thinking that the openers haven\u2019t fired or the middle order hasn\u2019t done well, because as a batting unit, we haven\u2019t done well in this game as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to pinpoint anyone. All we have to do is gear up for the next game, come out positive and not think about that I\u2019ve done well…It\u2019s all about making the team win, and doing anything that we can to make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if the Indian batting is too dependent on him, the skipper replied, \u201cWe definitely as a team don\u2019t and can\u2019t think from that point of view. No one\u2019s doing anyone a favour by going out there and performing. It\u2019s our job to do that and it\u2019s a duty we\u2019ve been given.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we did in this game \u2013 we should definitely be better than that. I\u2019m the first one to come out and accept that because unless you accept your mistake you can\u2019t improve on it. Because this is the first time in the last 5 Tests that we\u2019ve been really outplayed.\u201d<\/p>\n
This loss allows them an extra day of contemplation, albeit it will be tough to overturn a 2-0 deficit in the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London India captain Virat Kohli conceded that team combination was \u201ca bit off\u201d in the lost second Test against England and urged his struggling batsmen to \u201ckeep it simple\u201d in the head to save the ongoing series. \u201cI think we got the combination a bit off before the game. We have a chance to correct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39166,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39164\/revisions\/39166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}