It’s not been a happy few months for the Indian team. They went winless through tours of South Africa and New Zealand, even though they showed gumption and quality and came desperately close to winning matches on both tours.
Returning to the familiar environs of the subcontinent might have been expected to change fortunes, but after beating Bangladesh, India faced disappointment again. A close loss to Sri Lanka was followed by an even closer defeat against Pakistan, when Shahid Afridi sent two balls soaring over the ropes with 9 to get off four balls and one wicket standing on Sunday.
Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, conceded that the team was making too many mistakes, which needed to be rectified quickly. “We are making mistakes regularly, which we need to correct because they are costing us in international cricket. If we make three or four crucial errors in each game, it’s quite costly in the end,” said Kohli. “That is one thing we have to learn from and improve on because there’s quite a bit of inexperience in batting and bowling. People learn from mistakes and I hope in the coming games we don’t repeat these mistakes and play more smartly at crucial times.”
Some of those mistakes included batsmen trying to take the aerial route when there wasn’t any need for it and Dinesh Karthik fluffing a second stumping chance in as many games. In spite of that, India managed to drag Pakistan till the end, and almost pulled off a win, for which Kohli lavished praise on his bowlers and fielders.
“I’m not shocked at all,” said Kohli when asked how the team would recover from the shock defeat. “I’m really proud of the way the boys fought it out. If you compare the experience of our team with their team, it’s massive, it’s huge. And in international cricket it really counts a lot. You can get away with it in Twenty20, but in the 50-over format you need to show a lot of character and that’s exactly what the boys did. If you see the kind of batsmen they had and our bowlers with the inexperience they had, still to put up that kind of fight was commendable.”
With four overs to go in the chase and Pakistan needing 30 runs with four wickets in hand, Kohli opted to hold R Ashwin’s offspin back and went with his seam options instead, bowling out Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami. He later explained that was a deliberate ploy, because only wickets would have won India the game at that stage.
“I knew that if I put the seamers in before and Ashwin comes to bowl, they will go for it,” explained Kohli. “Wickets were all we wanted. If Afridi and Umar Gul had just played singles they would have won easily. I took that risk of putting the seamers in and making them hit the ball. We almost pulled it off as well in the end. Those last two sixes were not quite off the middle of the bat. One side was a small boundary, but that’s how it goes. I’m really proud of the way the team showed character in the field and with the bowling as well. 245 against a team like Pakistan and on that wicket with the dew is not easy to defend, but I think the guys showed a lot of character.”
The defeat has all but consigned India to an early exit, unless Bangladesh and Afghanistan can pull off major upsets, but after having had the experience of waiting on other team’s results and being disappointed, Kohli took the more pragmatic approach this time.
“Well I’ve personally stopped putting my money on the games that are left in the tournament,” he said. “In Australia as well, we were watching another game, and Sri Lanka almost beat Australia and we could have made the finals, but that didn’t happen. Last time in Asia Cup as well we were hoping Sri Lanka beats Pakistan or Bangladesh, either of the two, but that didn’t happen. All we can do is put up a strong performance in our game, try and get a bonus point, and then see. We’ll know by March 4 what happens. We’re just looking to improve our cricket and correct our mistakes.”
Kohli had been handed the captaincy reins once Mahendra Singh Dhoni was ruled out, and said captaincy was still a learning process for him. “It’s about having composure in different situations and that’s how you learn,” said Kohli, who has also reined his more expressive ways as one of the seniors in the team now. “It’s not always easy to step in and start captaining the side when you haven’t really had an idea of the formations and the kind of bowling changes that happen. As a fielder, there’s only so much you can pay attention to in the field, so to think about all that takes a bit of time for a captain. Today even the guys responded to what I wanted to do and my ideas. It was good to be captaining out there in the middle, because suddenly the guys bowled and fielded as well, it’s always pleasing for a captain if everyone’s giving 100 percent on the field and that was the case today. I’m learning with every game, trying to improve with every game and using my resources to the best of my abilities.”
493 total views, 2 views today