Indian skipper Virat Kohli scored 55 in the second innings of the Indian batting effort. His efforts however were not good enough in helping India save the third Test in Headingley. India lost the Test match by an innings and 76 runs as England levelled the series with two Test matches to go.
Addressing the press conference after India’s loss, Virat Koli opened up on the various factors that led to his team’s defeat. He started off by speaking about the scoreboard pressure. India were trailing by 139 runs when they resumed their innings on day 4.
“Basically, it was down to scoreboard pressure,” said Kohli. “You’re always up against it when you get out for under 80, and the opposition puts up such a big score. But we did well to stay in the game yesterday, fight back as much as we could, and gave ourselves a chance. But the pressure today was outstanding from the England bowlers, and eventually they got the results they wanted” said Kohli.
Sticking to his decision to bat first at the toss, Kohli credited the English bowlers for bowling in the right areas in both innings. Ollie Robinson took seven wickets in the match including a fifer during India’s second innings.
“Batting collapses can happen in this country; the pitch was good to bat on, but their discipline with the ball forced us to make a few mistakes, and it was difficult to deal with spells where we weren’t getting runs. The pitch looked good to bat on, and when England batted, it hadn’t changed much, so they had a lot more intent with the bat, made better decisions. The result is a reflection of how the teams played in this game; we expected them to bounce back” Kohli added.
The top order has to give enough runs for the lower middle order to step up: Virat Kohli
Indian skipper Virat Kohli wasn’t too critical of his lower-middle order. Batting at number six, Rishabh Pant scored only 87 runs in the series at an average of 17.4. Jadeja though looked determined to stay at the crease, played one outside the off-stump to give is wicket away.
“The batting depth is an argument you can have,” said Kohli. “The top order has to give enough runs for the lower middle order to step up. We did pretty well in the first two games; when you have a result like this, you can’t take too much from it. As a group, we need to stay close and confident, even after 36 all out (in Australia), we came back” said Kohli backing his lower-order to deliver in the next two Tests.
ENG vs IND 2021: 3rd Test Day 4 Highlights
England were rampant on day 4, cleaning India up for 278.
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Kohli concluded by saying that he is not a big fan of playing with an extra batsman to lengthen the batting line-up. He said that if the top-six cannot score runs when the team needs it is needless to blame the lower-order to do it.
I am not a believer in that balance. “If your 6-7 don’t do the job, an extra is no guarantee that he will bail you out. You need to have the ability to take 20 wickets to win a Test match,” Virat Kohli told the press after the Headingley defeat.
The next Test starts from next Thursday at The Oval and India have four days to identify their mistakes and work on them.
Also Read: ENG vs IND 2021: 3 Reasons Why India Lost The Headingley Test
