Kohli hails 'best win'

India captain Virat Kohli was impressed by the resilience shown by his team in bouncing back in the series.

Published : Mar 07, 2017 16:36 IST , Bengaluru

India's Virat Kohli celebrates the wicket of Australia's Mathew Wade.
India's Virat Kohli celebrates the wicket of Australia's Mathew Wade.
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India's Virat Kohli celebrates the wicket of Australia's Mathew Wade.


 

Excerpts:

More fulfilling than all the other wins under you?

For sure. Till now, this is the best one definitely. I don’t want to say much. A lot of people were talking about the head of the snake, but I think the snake did pretty well by itself. It’s not just about one individual. But I’m pretty happy if they keep focussing on the head of the snake. The sting can come from a lot of directions.

The pressure after the defeat in Pune:

If they [Australia] were saying that they need to get me out and the team will fall apart, I told everyone else, that it was an opportunity for them. They [Australia] basically played into our hands. I feel that the partnership between Ajinkya [Rahane] and [Cheteshwar] Pujara, in a situation where the momentum was against us in the series, was outstanding. In the last two years, it’s one of the top two partnerships, or maybe No.1. They both showed why they were India’s best Test batsmen.

Game set up by bowlers on the second day?

For sure. I think the first session on Day Two – we gave away only 45-odd runs and picked up two wickets when they could have taken the game away from us. They were 40 without loss [overnight]. I think that was probably the momentum change that we needed, and throughout the day we didn’t give more than 200 runs and picked up six wickets. We saw the first-class stats here, and no team has chased even 120 in the fourth innings. So we knew, once we get 150-plus, we had a fair chance. Eventually we surprised ourselves by winning by 75 runs.

On K.L. Rahul:


I think the last three innings have been his best three innings. And I told him that he will cherish the ones that he doesn't get hundreds in. They're so valuable to the team. He's shown a lot of character and I'm sure in the coming games he'd like to push that score forward and put the team in an even better position. Hats off to the way he's played. Young guy, big series, team against the wall and he's shows character three times out of four innings. Outstanding.

On Ian Healy's comment that he was losing respect for Kohli:


[I’ll lose respect] in his eyes? We’ve got 1.2 billion people in India. One person doesn’t make a difference to my life. You should go and watch the video of him getting out in Centurion, down the leg side. I heard he said something about me not having good behaviour with umpires. You should watch that video.

On DRS:

There are loopholes in every technology and system. There’s no two ways about it. People are bound to make mistakes. Earlier the benefit of the doubt used to go to the batsman but not anymore. We have also not been that consistent with taking the right DRS calls. We need to get better. But one thing. We take our decisions on the field ourselves. We don’t ask for confirmation upstairs, so I think that’s one thing that’s pretty consistent with us.

 

 

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