India lost the first match of the ongoing ICC World Test Championship when they went down to New Zealand in Wellington by 10 wickets. Nothing went to plan for the visitors and the batting failed twice in both the innings to cede the match. Speaking after the match, captain Virat Kohli said that the side now needs to learn from the mistakes and march on for the second Test match.
Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar believes that the failure of captain Kohli to score runs in both the innings was the decisive factor in the match. “Kohli getting out early in both innings, that was a massive factor. If Virat Kohli gets runs, it puts the opposition off their plans. New Zealand stuck to their plans, nobody was out there counter-attacking and this did not help India’s cause,” Manjrekar told on Star Sports after the match. It has not been an entirely fruitful tour for Kohli - his sequence of scores read 45, 11, 38, 11 (T20s); 51, 15, 9 (ODIs) and 2 and 19 (1st Test).
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However, the skipper is not too worried with the lack of scores and believes that he has been batting well and runs do not reflect the way he has been batting.
{{/usCountry}}However, the skipper is not too worried with the lack of scores and believes that he has been batting well and runs do not reflect the way he has been batting.
{{/usCountry}}“I am absolutely fine. I am batting really well. I feel that sometimes scores don’t reflect the way you are batting and that’s what can happen when you don’t execute what you want to well,” Kohli told reporters at the end of the 1st Test match.
“Look when you play so much cricket and you play for so long, obviously you will have 3-4 innings that don’t go your way. If you try and make too much out of it, it’ll keep piling on,” the captain further added.