JOIN USQuestions over the pitch were inevitable and the replies from Virat Kohli were on expected lines. After routing South Africa inside three days on a turner for an unassailable 2-0 lead, Kohli defended India’s tactics saying it all boiled down to batsmen’s mindset.
“It is not a policy, it is the conditions that you get in India; otherwise you will just play Test matches which will get you 500 runs in an innings,” he said when asked if this is going to the norm in the future series as well. “You don’t create bowlers like that, you don’t win Test matches like that. The key is to win Test matches. I have said this before, wherever you go to play in the world, you got to be prepared to face those conditions and tune your game accordingly. Today was a classic example of two guys (Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis) applying themselves and showing that it can be done,” he pointed out.
While maintaining that India have never complained about conditions, Kohli said he didn’t understand the negative reaction that the pitch here for the third Test attracted from players across the world.
“I don’t know why is there so much hype created around the issue. There are a lot of people writing a lot of things about the pitch, ‘it should not be like this’ or ‘it is turning too much’… people sitting somewhere else and speaking about the pitch in India. I think it is just a matter of mindset where people are just giving their opinions and they are free to do so. I don’t feel that way, we have never complained when we had challenging conditions and won’t complain in the future either.
In the last few years if you see the stats of any team they are dominant at home and that is how Test cricket has gone. Whoever has won away from home is the No 1 or No 2 side in the world. South Africa hadn’t lost in nine years and it is very hard to maintain that sort of record. Credit to them, they have not lost an away series for nine years but I would give credit to our boys for putting equal amount of pressure in the course of these three Test matches and actually win the series.”