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India captain Virat Kohli was graceful in defeat admitting that Murali Vijay’s dismissal might have just been the turning point in their 48-run defeat against Australia in the first cricket Test, here today.
Asked if Vijay’s dismissal when he was batting 99 became the turning point, Kohli replied,”Could be. If me and Vijay added about 40 runs there, the game would have been different.
You see one opening and the team capitalises, and that’s what Autsralia did.”
Kohli said that in hindsight his shot selection to the delivery that he got out could have been different.
“I was trying ot hit it much more in front of square. But it was one of those mistakes I’ll reflect back and say may be I could have done better and played a different shot. It was a great spell by Nathan Lyon and he bowled in right areas,” the stand-in skipper, who scored 115 and 141 in the match, said.
Kohli said that he had backed to win the Test match and doesn’t have any regrets.
“I told the guys last evening that whatever be the target, we will chase it. You have to play with passion and commitment if you have been chosen to play for your country,” said the skipper.
Virat had an interesting interaction with former India captain Rahul Dravid during a post-match television show where he made it clear that he never thought of putting down shutters even after Rohit Sharma got out.
“I am a pretty one-dimensional person. I don’t believe that there is no point playing for a draw. Even when Vijay and Jinks (Rahane’s nickname in the Indian team) got out, I was still backing myself for a win with Saha around. When Karn came in, I just told him to give me as much strike as possible.”
Talking about his own batting, Kohli told Dravid that he hasn’t swept so much in his life.
“I actually I was practising the lap shot at the nets but not the sweep. I don’t remember having swept so much in a match.”
On a different aspect of his batting, he was asked about how he had prepared to play Lyon,Kohli said,”I was trying to roll my bat and hit him atleast 20 degrees from where I was planning to hit. Yes, cover drive is my favourite shot but I was prepared to wait.”
His humourous side came out when asked about him trying to play mediator during those on-field altercations, Kohli smiled and said,”You can understand that if I am playing the peacemaker then what was going on out there.”
Captaincy does grow a few grey hairs and Kohli said that he now has now “grown 12 grey hairs over the past five days as he hasn’t had too much of sleep.”
Australia captain Michael Clarke termed Kohli’s hundred as a great knock and as good as any second innings hundred.
“It was fantastic win and there were some unbelievable performances. Virat Kohli. What an innings! That’s as good a second innings hundred as I’ve seen. There were some incredible performances. Nathan Lyon, David Warner. And Brad Haddin’s captaincy in the final session was outstanding,” Clarke was effusive in his praise.
“The boys deserve a lot of credit to keep trying to win the game. The were willing to lose in order to win.”
Clarke said that he had no doubts about the timing of his declaration.
“I thought if India were good enough to make 360, credit to them. But credit to our boys, and our bowlers. We did Phillip (Hughes) proud,” he said.
Man of the match Nathan Lyon praised the groundsmen for preparing a sporting wicket.
“Credit goes to the groundsman. They produced a great Test wicket. It was Test cricket, always with its twists and turns and we just had to hang in there,” Lyon said.
PTI
