From backing Rahane to praising England; Key takeaways from Virat Kohli's post-match comments

Failing to carry the momentum from the Australia series win, skipper Virat Kohli seemed disappointed after Joe Root & Co. won the first Test match as well as with a comprehensive 227-run win in the opening contest of the four-match series. Due to this win, India has slipped to 4th position and England at the top of the WTC points table.

 

 

However, Kohli did not hesitate to praise his opponents for their "professional and consistent" game. Besides, he also backed vice-captain Rahane and there were much more takeaways from his post-match comments.

 

 

Rahane, who had guided historic series win against Australia away from home, he was soon subject to severe criticism from the former players as well as the audience after the Mumbai batsman scored just 1 run cumulatively in both innings of the Chennai Test. At the post-match press conference, when asked about Rahane’s form, Kohli was quick to remind the reporters that he had recently smashed a match-winning ton in Melbourne and was India’s most important player after Cheteshwar Pujara in Tests.

 

 

 

"Look, if you're trying to dig something out, you're not going to get anything because there is nothing," Kohli said on being asked about Rahane's scores of 1 and 0 in the Chennai Test. "Ajinkya, and I've said this many a time in the past as well, that along with Pujara, he is our most important Test batsman and he's going to continue to be. We believe in his abilities; we have believed in his abilities for a long time. He's an impact player. If you talk about the MCG Test, he stood up and scored a hundred there when the team wanted it most," Kohli said to reporters.

 

"You can look at the number of innings and what happens from there on, but the reality of the situation is we won the series in Australia," Kohli added. "Here's it's just one Test, two innings. Today, you can put that innings aside but in the first innings, he wanted to score a boundary. It was a brilliant catch from Joe that got rid of him. So if that goes to the boundary and he gets runs, we would not have been having this conversation. There are absolutely no issues, everyone is playing really well."

 

 

Kohli did not back away to admit the team's mistakes. He said that the team’s body language not being up to the mark in England’s first innings where the visitors went on to score 578 runs riding on Root’s remarkable 218-run knock.

 

 

"Our body language and intensity was not up to the mark, second innings we were much better. We were better in the second half of the first innings with the bat. We have to understand the things that we have done decently in this game and the things that we haven't and as a side we are always looking to improve," the captain added.

 

 

Kohli hailed Root & Co. for the way they performed against India in all departments but vowed to stage a fightback in the remaining matches. "Just looked like not much happening in it on the first two days. But credit to England, they got stuck in and put up a big total on the board. England was far more professional and consistent throughout the Test match than we were much better." 

  

 

 

 

Further, he added, "(Toss) ended up being crucial, I didn't think it would. We don't want to take anything away from England with the way they played. No excuses. We are a side that accepts our failures and faults and learns from them. One thing is for sure that in the next three matches we are going to give a tough fight and not let things slip away like it did in this Test."