‘It is our responsibility to bat in a better way and we did not do that today’
‘The idea (of including five bowlers) always is to take 20 wickets’
‘It was a case of us not playing fearless cricket and we not going out there and being positive’
India skipper Virat Kohli stoutly defended his five-bowler strategy, saying the blame lays with the batsmen who failed to deliver while chasing 176-odd runs in the first Test in Galle.
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Kohli said he would not say that he missed an extra batsmen as he chose to field five bowlers and as many batsmen.
"If I have said I am going to play with five bowlers, I cannot go down after a performance like this and say I wish I had an extra player," Kohli said after team's 63-run loss.
"You cannot play with 12 players. If I have chosen to play with five bowlers to take 20 wickets then it is our responsibility to bat in a better way and we did not do that today. So I am not bringing up any excuses or wishing that we had an extra batsman. We should have done better with six batsmen," he said.
"The idea always is to take 20 wickets and the bowlers did a very good job to do that and get us right into the game. We were set a target of 170-odd so we had an opportunity to win the game. It was a case of us being on top and forcing them to play the way they did in the second innings," added the captain.
After being ahead of the hosts for the better part of three days, the Indian batsmen lost the plot on day four and were bowled out for 112 runs.
The 26-year-old Kohli said the players lacked intent and smartness which was required in such situations.
"I think we did not counter what was being thrown at us. We should have been smarter with the way we wanted to go about playing against the spinners. I think in the end you saw Amit Mishra using his feet quite a bit. R Ashwin did that too. I think the other batsmen failed to learn from what should have been done from that sort of a wicket. So the need of the hour in the second innings was to take calculated risks when you are chasing a small total in the fourth innings."
"The intent has to be there, which I think was lacking and it is something we need to improve on definitely. It should be a lesson for the batsmen today. There is no excuse. And I am certain that guys will want to improve on a couple of aspects as far as facing spin is concerned,” he added.
The game turned on day three when Dinesh Chandimal played a counter-attacking hundred and helped his side set a competitive total. The Indian batsmen didn’t have any answers to Rangana Herath who picked up seven wickets as the top order collapsed in the morning with 6 wickets lost for only 55 runs.
The Indian skipper though refused to blame the pitch on which Lanka too had been dismissed for 183 runs in the first innings but recovered well enough to win the game.
"I don't think the pitch changed much. The turn and the bounce was pretty consistent throughout. I think they started bowling their spinners with the hard new ball and that’s why there were able to get that turn and bounce from an attacking line from the stumps. I don’t think the wicket had too many demons or something that we had to face where people are getting hit in the chest or the gloves.
"It was a case of us not playing fearless cricket and we not going out there and being positive. We were tentative and that's why we ended up being exposed," he said.
Kohli said the difference between the two sides was that the hosts played fearlessly and the Indians were tentative under pressure.
"They literally had a situation where they had nothing to lose, a deficit of 110 with five wickets to go and ended up giving us a target of 175. It was a classic case of people going out there and being fearless. Our display was a classic case of people going out there and being tentative. That was the major difference in losing the game because we only had, apart from the way we batted today, only an hour and half that was bad in the game for us yesterday.
"Throughout the game, we dominated and it feels strange to be on the losing side but that is unfortunately Test cricket. You play one bad session and then you could be lagging behind in the race," Kohli said.
