Kohli hits out at South African journalist

A South African journalist questioned the India captain on whether changing batting line-ups frequently spelled the doom for the side, and in reply, Kohli shot back, counter-questioning how many Tests have South Africa won recently.

After conceding the Test series to South Africa at the Centurion on Wednesday, India captain Virat Kohli lost his cool while addressing the media in the post-match conference.

Virat Kohli wears his emotions on his sleeve. He plays his cricket with a lot of passion and doesn’t hide his feelings when talking to the media. The Indian captain can explode too.

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And the press conference here on Wednesday after the conclusion of the second Test turned out to be a rather fiery affair. The skipper had just lost a series, he was angry and hurt at the performances of his men.

Then came the barrage of questions.

Kohli was irritated when asked whether India had been fielding its best eleven in the series?

Kohli shot back. "What is the best eleven? If we had won this Test, was this the best eleven? We don't decide the eleven according to the results. You are telling me that you could have played the best eleven. You tell me the best eleven and we will play that."

He stressed the result of a game does not always reflect the quality of the eleven. "I am saying the loss obviously hurts but you make one decision and you got to back it. Didn't we lose in India when we had the best 11 there?"

Kohli said, "Whoever is picked should be good enough to do the job for the team. That is why we have got such a big squad. 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 which is the best 11.”

When a South African journalist asked Kohli why there were changes in the eleven in every Test under his captaincy, Kohli lost his cool.

He thundered, “How many Test matches have we won out of 34? How many have we won? 21 wins. Two losses. How many draws? Does it matter? Wherever we play we try to do our best. I'm here to answer your questions, not to fight with you."

Despite the setback here, Kohli believed India was the best side in the world, and shot back, “How many times did South Africa come into the game in India? Coming close to winning games in India... can you count?"

The tempers were high all right.