Just competing not enough, need to learn art of crossing the line: Kohli
Southampton, Sept 3: India skipper Virat Kohli said his team cannot be satisfied with just competing overseas and it has to learn the art of crossing the line in pressure situation.
India suffered a 60-run loss in the fourth Test on Sunday after being dismissed for 184 while chasing a victory target of 245 set by England.
It cost India the series 3-1 and Kohli said that they need to understand situation whilst at the crease and not after the game.
“We can look at the scoreboard and say we were only 30 or 50 runs away, but we have to recognise that when we are in the midst of the situation, and not later. We know that we have played good cricket but we cannot say again and again to ourselves that we have competed,” Kohli said.
“When you come so close, there is an art of crossing the line as well, which we will have to learn. We have the ability, which is why we are getting close to a result. But when a pressure situation comes, how we react to it, is something we have to work on a bit.”
Like in South Africa, India started off the series lagging 0-2 but fought hard to reduce the deficit by clinching the third Test.
Kohli said his team needs to be more relentless and fearless to make better start to the overseas tours.
“Look we’ve spoken about the fact that even during the match when we’re in a driving position, we should be able to capitalise on it and not let the opposition come in, and fight back again and again. We can take a leaf out of that,” he said.
“Nottingham we did that, for three days we were relentless and we’re on top. So we need to think about how to start a series like that as well. As a group we need to be more relentless when we start a series and be a bit more expressive and fearless at the beginning of a series.
“Especially in a long series because, as I’ve said at the start of the series, you have time to comeback, but you want to come back when you’ve played fearless cricket and you don’t want to be catching up too much.”
When asked about the batsmen’s failure in this game, and the series, as a whole, the skipper said, “It’s very difficult to recognize key moments in the first innings of a Test match. But after I got out, I myself felt that had I batted for longer that day the lead could have been bigger.
