Indian captain Virat Kohli, appearing visibly disappointed, had tough words for his team after the series defeat against South Africa here on Wednesday.
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Kohli fumed, “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. So many soft dismissals in one match hurt a lot.”
He added, “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. We have repeated these mistakes.”
The Indian captain said his cricketers needed to be hard on themselves. “Are we giving 120 per cent? As a team we are definitely going to lay out these things in the open. We will ask the guys to be honest about what they were feeling at particular stages in the game, sit down and discuss as a team.”
'Have to live with series loss'
On winning Test series away from the sub-continent, he said, “It almost has to be a madness to be able to win away from home. And you have to live that every minute, every day of being on tour. As I said it is a very individual thing but we need to discuss this as a team for sure.”
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Asked whether there would be changes in the Indian team for the future series, Kohli replied, “The selectors will come into the conversation as well when we are looking at planning for future tours also because we have a lot of cricket away from home. Obviously, the selectors are going to be a big part of that conversation.”
On the controversies regarding the selection of the Indian eleven for the Tests here, Kohli said, “When something doesn't work, obviously it's going to be spoken against. There are many people that are involved in making a decision for the playing XI. A lot was spoken about Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar] as well but Mohammed Shami performed in this game. So now no one is talking about that now.”
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