India opener KL Rahul addressed the fact that India needed five-six overs more to win the opening Test at the Eden Gardens here on Monday.
During the media interaction after the match, Rahul said, “We wanted to make a game out of this. We lost three wickets early in one spell of (Suranga) Lakmal so we had to play a little bit extra. (Virat) Kohli played a fabulous knock and that’s what was expected of one batsman and he did it. Five or six overs and it would have been our way.”
India came pretty close to winning the series opener, reducing Sri Lanka to 75/7 chasing 231 after skipper Virat Kohli scored hit his 50th international century to steer India to 352/8 dec. Rahul also scored 79, his ninth fifty in 11 innings with Shikhar Dhawan falling six short of a century on day four.
Talking about the match, Rahul said, “On a wicket like that it would have been great if we got five days of cricket. We enjoyed playing on the wicket and it was challenging. These are the kind of matches you look forward to. Maybe, five or six overs we could have made a match out of it.”
The Indian opener also acknowledged that he hasn’t been part of a stop-start Test match like this which despite the interferences ended on such a high. He said, “It was a good experience for all of us. Personally, I haven’t played a game like this which is rain-curtailed for two days and then went down to the wire. We played really well to come back from how we started, we were nothing for three and to come back into the game and make a game out of this was commendable which speaks volumes of the team and how we have evolved in the last couple of years. We would have loved to win the game but nonetheless we put in great efforts. The bowlers and batsmen did their job.”
When asked about Sri Lanka’s tactics to waste the time, Rahul replied, “It’s a tricky thing to say. If we were in a situation like this, we would have done the same. That’s how the game is played. Nobody wants to lose the game. These are tricks played by every team so nothing unfair about it. But as a team trying to win the game, we wanted to push in as many overs as we can. That’s how it is played. The light was not good enough to play towards the end and we couldn’t do anything about it.”
Lauding the performance of man-of-the-match Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who picked up eight wickets in two innings, and Mohammed Shami, who scalped six, Rahul said, “The plan was to go out there an play positively. Trying to get 200-250 runs and give them a challenging total which even they can feel they can chase it down and that’s where we create the opportunities.”
