'It's winning that matters'

In an effort to maximise the home advantage, India have gone for turning pitches to tame the South Africans but the tactic has also exposed Indian batsmen’s weakness against spinners.

When asked pointedly, skipper Virat Kohli said he didn’t mind compromising batsmen’s averages if that guaranteed Test wins for India. “I don’t think our (batting) displays have been ugly, let me state that first,” he began. “It’s a harsh word to use. It’s been a lack of application. And secondly, I don’t mind compromising on (batsmen’s) averages as long as we are winning Test matches. I think that’s our main concern, we are not playing for record, we are not playing for numbers or averages,” he stressed.

Pointing out India’s recent series win over Sri Lanka, Kohli once again reiterated that it was the bowlers who win Test matches and not batsmen.

“In Sri Lanka our performances weren’t that great with the bat but we still won the series,” he noted. “It’s the bowlers who are going to win you Test matches, as simple as that. If you don’t take 20 wickets, you can have an (batting) average of 55, it doesn’t matter. These small contributions and team winning are more important than having an average of 50 and above and bowlers not being able to take wickets.

I think you need to find an appropriate balance and sometime small contributions are more important than the big hundreds that we get in Test cricket.”

Where in Sri Lanka they were pushed hard for wins by the hosts, South Africa, the No 1 Test team, have been surprisingly lacklustre. Kohli, however, refused to discuss Proteas performance. “I don’t want to comment on the opposition. We would have played the same way if we had got, say a better response from their batsmen. We would have played the same way the series has panned out now. I said this in the beginning, we are focusing on our performances and we are not looking at the No 1 side and No 1 players in the world.

“We take every team the same way and I don’t think we have changed our attitude from Sri Lanka, the way we went about our business here and that’s the kind of mindset we need to take forward as well. The team has created winning momentum and it’s important to carry it forward. That habit of winning is very hard to get and to sustain it is even more difficult,” he explained.