India skipper Virat Kohli has expressed that his teammates have no option apart from learning from their mistakes after facing an innings defeat in the Lord’s Test match. He also added that the team is now focussing on changing the series scoreline to 2-1. India suffered a demoralizing defeat on the fourth day at Lord’s on Sunday as they were bowled out for 130 to lose the Test by an innings-and-159-runs. The Indian skipper didn’t opt to give an excuse of the conditions for their loss.
During the post-match press conference, Kohli said, “People are saying that we batted in overcast conditions … if we dwell on those things, we’ll be unable to plan. We can’t think about what could have happened in the game because we have to correct our mistakes. For a sportsman, it’s important that if we make mistakes we ensure they’re corrected, and as a team, we’ll look to focus on that. The fact is we didn’t play good cricket in this match. We could have done a lot better with both bat and ball.”
Acknowledging the mistakes committed on and off the field, the Indian skipper said they are looking to learn from their mistakes and they ill make sure that such mistakes don’t happen again. He elaborated that team is now focussing on changing the series scoreline to 2-1, and from thereon build on that strongly. He also admitted that they haven’t been able to make batting and bowling work together in a Test.
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The conditions were ideal for swing and seam and as a result of that, the visitors were bowled out for 107 and 130 in the two innings respectively. According to Kohli, the only way to win games in such situations is building partnerships throughout the innings, something India simply could not conjure.
Virat explained, “When you’re out there in a situation that is tough, you have to find ways to counter the situation, which I think we’ve failed to do as batsmen, myself included, in this game. We haven’t been able to have partnerships in this game, which is the basic rule of batting. That’s what we need to work on, to build partnerships and put the team in a strong position.”
Kohli has been facing some issues with his back this year and once again on Day 4 of the Lord’s Test it got aggravated which is yet another concern in the Indian camp. But the Indian skipper revealed that he will most likely be ready for Nottingham Test.
The Indian skipper concluded, “As of yesterday and today, it wasn’t great. Back is one thing that can be really tricky. It happened during the last leg of the South Africa tour when I missed a T20 game. The good thing is I have five days before the next Test. We’re confident, with rehab and strengthening, I should be ready for the next game although not with the same intensity on the field, but I should be able to hold a position in the field and be 100 percent with the bat.”
