India captain Virat Kohli credited opposition bowlers for their impressive show in the first Twenty20 International, saying the hosts were 30-35 runs short of their target against England on Thursday.
England bowlers cashed in on questionable shot selection of the Indian batsmen to restrict the hosts to 147 for seven, before skipper Eoin Morgan led from front with a 51 off 38 balls to set up an emphatic win for his team. "England played better cricket than us today, and they are deserving winners. Credit to their bowlers, they bowled good hard lengths with extra pace and bounce," Kohli said. "We would have liked to execute that as well, but we were about 30-35 runs short on that wicket."
Defending the target, Yuzvendra Chahal (2/27) shone with the ball for India and Kohli was full of praise for the young leg-spinner.
"I have a lot of confidence in him (Chahal), he plays with me at RCB. He has wicket-taking ability as well. He is confident about his skills. A youngtsre showing cricketer, really a good sign," he said.
Kohli defended his decision to open the innings as he feels it gives the team more balance in absence of a seasoned Rohit Sharma while making it clear that young lokesh Rahul needs to work on his consistency. "I open in IPl and that is a T20 tournament. So I have an idea (of how to go about it) and that is why I went in to open. I did not go there to look special. Everyone anyway was expecting that. My opening gives more balance to the team," Kohli said.
"You can have an extra batsman in the middle order, a player like Suresh Raina gets more dangerous at 3, so when Rohit is not around as an opener, I can anytime step up because it provides more balance," he added.
Asked if he would reconsider his decision in the next game, the skipper replied:"It depends. If Rohit was in the side, there is no question that he would be then opening with Rahul.”
Kohli acknowledged that team wants more consistency from openers after another failure from Rahul today. "Obviously, it is one area we need to work on. All teams want their openers to fire. But you also need to understand that it is difficult to get (a lot of) openers of international standards and that is why you have to back the openers that you have for some time. We will continue to back them because they have performed in the past," he said.
Meanwhile, England skipper Eoin Morgan lauded his bowlers for the "outstanding" effort. "Our bowlers were outstanding tonight, Moeen Ali in particular showed great resolve. We showed a lot of experience, and Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan put their hands up in very important roles," Morgan said.