England coach Trevor Bayliss reckons that the only way to put some pressure on the seemingly peerless Virat Kohli is to keep on taming the rest of the Indian line-up in the ongoing Test series.
Talking to the reporters after the first Test, Bayliss said, “If Virat Kohli is not the best batsman (in the world), he’s very close to it. If we can put pressure on the other batsmen in the Indian team, that’s going to add to the pressure on him. I don’t think it’s any different for us. We’ve got a few guys who are not necessarily cemented in the team and that put extra pressure on people like Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow.”
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India lost the first Test in Birmingham by 31 runs after batting collapses in both the innings, during which Kohli stood out with his heroics — a century in the first innings and a half-century in the second innings. Bayliss said he expects Team India to be a quick learner when it comes to tackling the moving ball just as his team would look to address its weak handling of spin, in the remaining four matches of the series.
Talking about the issues further, the English coach said, “India is a very good team. We’re very much in the hunt here. When the ball’s moving, we’ve shown that a few of their guys do struggle against the moving ball. I’m sure that they’ll be going away working out how they can play it as we’re going working on how to play the off-spin.”
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Bayliss also voiced in sync of R Ashwin, who reckons that the Dukes ball is the best for Test cricket at the moment.
The English coach concluded, “Certainly, with Ashwin bowling so well to all batsmen but obviously to the left-handers, we’ll have to have a bit of a chat and see how we might be able to play him a little different. It would be nice (to get Dukes in all Tests). It gets a bit of sideways movement. I’m a fan of Test cricket and you watch these games and some of these lower scores they do, most of the time, give a good Test match for the fans.”
