India captain Virat Kohli said the World No. 1 Test side is ready to introspect and rectify their mistakes in their 0-2 series whitewash in New Zealand.
Virat Kohli said India are not going to give any excuses and conceded that the batsmen did not back up the good effort by the bowlers over the 2 Tests that lasted a total of 7 days.
Kohli’s comments came after India were handed a 7-wicket thrashing inside 3 days in the 2nd Test in Christchurch. It was his 1st series whitewash as captain in Tests as New Zealand had clinched the 1st Test by 10 wickets inside 4 days.
India managed to get past 200 runs only once over 4 innings. Only 2 batsmen — Mayank Agarwal and Cheteshwar Pujara — managed a tally of more than 100. While Virat Kohli had one of his worst patches with just 32 runs over 4 innings, vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane looked out of sorts with just 91 runs.
“It was a matter of not having enough intent in the 1st Test. Playing well here in the innings and then small things small margins. When you sit down and look back at this series, you have to give credit to the way the New Zealand bowlers bowled in the right areas long enough. You had to play extravagant shots to get runs. It was a combination of us not executing well and New Zealand playing really well in their conditions,” Virat Kohli said.
“I think their bowling and consistency was excellent and that forced our batsmen to make these mistakes which we don’t. As a batting unit, we generally put up a fight, put up scores on the board. It was just not enough done by the batsmen to give the bowlers a chance to try and attack.
“The bowling was pretty good. Even in the 1st Test, we bowled well. As a batting unit, we did not back up the effort by the bowlers. It was disappointing as a side.
“It has happened before as well in South Africa as well when they came and bowled them out and the batsmen did not do well. I think, to win series and matches overseas, you need to have a balanced performance between ball and bat. That was not there.
“It’s disappointing but we need to go back to the drawing board and correct those things.”
India lost the toss in both the Tests and started with a disadvantage but Virat Kohli said India isn’t going to give that as an excuse. The skipper said India will be working towards analyzing what went wrong and correcting them in the near future.
“Toss you could think about that being a factor but we are never a side that thinks like that. It did sort of extra advantage to the bowlers in the 1st 2-3 hours of each Test. But as an international side, especially like we were playing so well over the last 2 series we have to understand the conditions and adapt to it. We were not able to do it here.
