KOHLI KUDOS:
PRAISE MOTIVATES ENGLAND OPENER
INDIA captain Virat Kohli hinted that he might skip the three-day pink-ball warmup game ahead of the eagerly-awaited Test series against Australia after an intense limited-overs leg of the tour ended with his team winning the T20 series 2-1 on Tuesday (8).
The tour game against Australia A is due to begin on Friday (11). It will be India’s final practice match before the opening day-night Test in Adelaide from next Thursday (17).
Kohli will lead the team in the opening game of the four-match series, after which he will return to India on paternity leave ahead of the birth of his first child.
“I will see if I can play the tour match. Playing on and off is not my thing and I like to play the full game. I will talk to our physio and then decide,” Kohli said after the third and final T20 International, which India lost by 12 runs.
Australian bowlers held their nerve to defend 186 and stall an Indian cleansweep after Kohli’s 61-ball 85 threatened to snatch victory from the hosts.
Like in the previous game, Hardik Pandya, in the company of Kohli, again threatened to win the game for India after he had hit a couple of sixes.
“At one stage when Hardik started going, we thought we could pull it off. The middle over phase during our batting cost us the game. A partnership of 30odd would have made it easier for Hardik,” Kohli said.
Overall, the India skipper said he was pleased with the way his side was finding ways to win matches from tough situations. “We are finding ways to come back and give the opposition a scare and the series win is a little asterisk for us to finish the 2020 season on a high.”
Kohli also thanked the sports-loving Australian crowd for the manner in which it turned up despite the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I feel the crowd was a factor as well, it’s always giving you a dimension of motivation. Our crowd pulls us through sometimes, and Australia has got great support too. We as players feed off the crowd’s energy.”
Kohli said he was looking forward to the Tests, adding that his current team was stronger than the one that made history by winning its first Test series Down Under two years ago.
“We need to take the same competitive attitude into the Tests, and having played here a few times, we can score runs as well,” he said.
“Once it’s time to capitalise and score, we need to do that session by session. I’m sure the current side is stronger than last time.”