We need to play fearless cricket, says Kohli

A candid Virat Kohli admitted that India were totally outplayed by England and felt the batsmen need to take up individually responsibilities and lay a strong foundation at the start of away series.

“We created pressure (but) we were not able to hold that pressure for long enough with the bat and the ball as well, so at crucial stages we could not keep that pressure on for long and that is why they took advantage of those situations better than us,” said the skipper on Tuesday evening after India lost the Pataudi Trophy 1-4.

“If you see the batting orders, there is hardly anything to pick from both the sides, conveniently as you can see a lot of people want to target only one side which is fine, but we understand why this series has gone the way it has. To be honest we don’t see a massive portion that we need to correct, because if you are competing in every game and you have an upper hand in every game at some stage or the other, you are doing something right.

“We are not starting behind all the time you know, we have fought back in this series, England has had to fight back a few times, so they deserved to win because they played better than us, that is how we look at this series. We are definitely not happy about the way the series has gone, but the way we played cricket is something that, not me, no one in the change room, no one doubts even one per cent, because we played with the right attitude and the will to win every game that we played.”

Kohli then emphasised on starting the series strongly. “Batsmen scoring runs is very crucial and we can’t neglect it. As I said everyone needs to take up individual responsibility. We’ve have spoken to individuals on what are the issues, what is wrong and why and what needs to be done so that it’s not repeated. We need to play fearless cricket at the start of the series and set a benchmark to play positive cricket.”