Port of Spain: Skipper Virat Kohli hammered his second consecutive hundred to fashion India’s series-clinching victory in the third match as India spoilt Chris Gayle’s possible ODI swan-song, here on Wednesday.
Virat Kohli, winning captain, player of the match and player of the series, said, “I didn’t want to disappoint you (Ian Bishop) further, you asked about the conversion rate. Jokes apart, last few matches, I presented a challenge to myself. The way he (Shreyas Iyer) batted out there, he took a lot of pressure off me. His knock was the game-changer.”
“We want to have people take responsibility at different batting positions. But he certainly presented a strong case for himself. He completely played in full control and was putting pressure on the bowlers. Really good tempo, really good character. Thankfully, it’s not a fracture (about his injury), just a split on the nail in the front. I think I should be fine for the first Test. We were a bit nervous when the rain break happened because of the fact they played so well in the first 10 overs.”
“We felt that with DLS, the game can go out of our reach. The outfield got wet as well, we thought they could capitalise but the bowlers did a great job. We are feeling very confident. We’ve got a practice game which will allow the players to get into the Test rhythm. We’re looking forward to two good Test matches,” said the skipper.
“I had been around for a while, so, experience counts in pressure situations, understanding where the game is heading and what I need to do in terms of the tempo of the game. You obviously want to take a lot of pride for stepping up for the team as much as you can – I definitely take a lot of pride in that. So yeah, two good games with the bat for me but more importantly we got the result because of my contribution as well, that always feels much, much better,” he added.
As I said last game and this game, Shikhar and Rohit have been brilliant performers for us, one of them usually gets a big score but if they don’t then it’s my responsibility in the top three to get a big score. That’s how we have played and that’s why we’ve been so successful – 75% win ratio over the last three-four years. We have a good template that we follow as a team, Kohli said.
Jason Holder, losing captain, said, “We had to give ourselves a bit of time. I think the batters did a reasonable job. We were always in the game but credit to the Indian players. We let ourselves down in the recent past and we’ll have to find ways. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’ve got to turn things around, it’s matter of Test guys to put their hands up and turn the fortunes.”