Kohli: Batsmen didn’t apply themselves

"The bounce and pace in South Africa and the swing in England cannot be replicated here. If you want to play and compete in Tests then the wickets should be result oriented."

Virat Kohli said that the Mohali pitch wasn't unplayable.

On the match ending in three days: It would have been the right track if the game had gone on for five days, so why not three days. If we lose in England no one asks whether the track was good or not. As Hashim (Amla) said, the batsmen didn’t apply themselves and I agree with him. Those who applied got runs. It wasn’t like teams are getting out for 50. So there is no need to unnecessarily harp on the wicket.

Preparing for overseas tours: It all comes down to how many wickets the spinners get abroad. I don’t think we should compare the two. Fast bowlers should be better, but for that we don’t need to alter home conditions. We can prepare such wickets and hold camps, get those kind of tracks in first-class cricket, but that can’t happen on a regular basis. The bounce and pace in South Africa and the swing in England cannot be replicated here. If you want to play and compete in Tests then the wickets should be result oriented. Like Ashwin pointed out that he never saw any hype when we went on overseas tours. And it should not happen here as well. If you are an international cricketer then you have to use that ability and apply it.

The match was closer than what the margin suggests: Yes, the match wasn’t as comfortable as the margin suggests. I wouldn’t say it was very, very close. I would say if they had wickets in hand then it could have been interesting in the fourth innings. Apart from that I don’t really want to get into the deficiencies of the opposition team. I am sure they want to reflect on that and so do we as a batting unit. We have not performed to our potential in this game.

Fear of spin rather than spin caused downfall: I think that was the case. I can comment on our batting. We made errors rather than fear of spin. We made shot judgement errors. We know that it has been committed, it will be reflected upon and corrected, next time we come out to play. As far as the theme is concerned, I think you have to ask the curators. Not me. Eventually we do have a certain nature of Indian wickets that we get. But to make any sort of wicket that don't give you result, I don't see any logic in that. Otherwise, if you say 'How to keep Test cricket alive?' you need to have wickets that will give you results. So it all depends on how the person making the wicket feels about that.’