INDIA TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA, 2018

Kohli comes down hard on soft dismissals

by Kaushik Rangarajan • Last updated on

"You can accept defeat but not the way we played" © BCCI

It took all of a single session on the final day at Centurion to douse whatever little hopes India may have had retained of forcing a series decider at the Wanderers. That their record run of nine successive series wins came to a screeching halt was down to their own doing as opposed to the shenanigans of the pitch, which had added variable bounce to its slow and low characteristics. Cheteshwar Pujara became the first Indian to be run-out twice in a Test and then watched from the dressing room as the rest of the line-up, barring a brief resistance from Rohit Sharma and Mohammed Shami, wilted without a fight.

It was a similar situation in the first innings, where India's batsmen failed to rally around captain Virat Kohli, whose imperious 153 wasn't enough to give his side a lead. Pujara was run-out first ball in the first innings while Hardik Pandya's slack attitude to getting back to his crease cost India a wicket at a crucial stage on the third morning.

Kohli said it was not acceptable for a team to repeatedly fall prey to such soft modes of dismissals.

"You can accept defeat but not the way we played, the way we let the advantage slip out of our hand, that is not acceptable from a team's point of view," Kohli said after India's 135-run defeat in Centurion. "So many soft dismissals in one match hurt a lot. Because you work so hard, you prepare for a match, you get into good situations, shift the game towards you, and then the momentum shifts because of these mistakes. That feels very bad as a team. Individuals have to sit and reflect on these things themselves. They do it, I am not saying they don't reflect on it, but we have repeated these mistakes in both matches. There have been many soft dismissals, which as a team, are not acceptable."

Not only did the dismissals disrupt India's innings at regular intervals, it also ensured that they were never able to build a partnership of any substance. In the first innings at Centurion, Kohli and Murali Vijay put on 79 for the third-wicket and later Ashwin shared 71 with his captain, but on each occasion a loose shot cost India the chance to capitalise on a potentially advantageous position.

In fact, in the two Test matches so far, a 99-run rearguard effort between Pandya and Bhuvneshwar Kumar remains their best effort. Weirdly enough, in three of the four completed innings so far, India's best partnership has come for the eighth wicket (Pandya-Bhuvneshwar & Ashwin-Saha in Cape Town, Rohit-Shami in Centurion) a particularly grim reflection of their performance, one that didn't escape Kohli's analysis of the defeat.

"Partnerships of 60s and 70s are not good enough to win Test matches," Kohli said. "We've seen that in the past as well and we've identified that. You know you need guys to put their heads down when the partnerships have gone to 60 and 70 and try to make it into 100 or 150 to give the team the best chance of winning a Test match or being in a solid position. Similarly, when you are batting as well, you want to make big 100s and not get out so that the team can benefit from that. So it's the same mindset that you take into partnerships as well."

Kohli also used the 2014-15 tour of Australia as example, where they became the only visiting side to score 400-plus in each Test of a series in Australia (Min. 4 Tests). "When we did well in Australia, we got 450 runs every first innings but our partnerships were massive. That is something we haven't repeated here. And as I said in the presentation as well, South Africa did that better than us. They did not have many partnerships, but whatever they had, one big partnership was always there and that was the key to them consolidating those situations. They deserved to win the series."

The Indian captain got edgy when the post-mortem of the defeat shifted to India's choice of playing XI through the tour. India left out designated vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane on the basis of form for each of the two Tests while Bhuvneshwar Kumar got the axe in Centurion to accommodate the horses for courses policy. Responding to a question on squandered opportunity given the sub-continental nature of the Centurion pitch, Kohli turned interviewer and asked the journalist for his best XI, before proceeding to add: "If we had won this, was this the best XI?

"I'm saying that we don't decide XI according to the results. But you're saying... you're telling me we could have played the best XI. So you tell me the best XI and we'll play that. I'm saying the loss obviously hurts. But you make one decision and you back it. We certainly don't sit here and say, 'oh if you fail in one game you are not good enough to be at this level or...' once the team loses. Didn't we lose in India? (versus Australia in Pune) We had the best XI there. Whoever plays should be good enough to go out there and do the job for the team. That's why we've got such a big squad. Because we believe in their abilities and they are good enough to be at this level but you need to do that collectively as a team. You can't pinpoint and say this is the best XI. We played with teams before that have looked really strong and have lost as well. So, I certainly don't bend towards that opinion at all.

"Look when something doesn't work, obviously it's going to be spoken against. We are pretty used to that. We as a team don't think of what the opinion going around is, and I've clarified that before also. There are many people that are involved in making a decision for the playing XI. A lot was spoken about Bhuvi as well but Shami performed in this game. And then we don't sit back and think 'Oh we could have done that or we should have done that'. You make one decision and you back it. It's always that scenario."

© Cricbuzz

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