Says his inexperienced team showed a lot of character to give Pakistan a fight
His team is on the verge of being knocked out of the Asia Cup after back-to-back losses but India’s stand-in skipper Virat Kohli said he is not at all shocked by the prospect as his side is massively inexperienced even though it has shown “character”.
India have lost consecutive matches to Sri lanka and arch-rivals Pakistan in the five-team event and are all but out of contention for a spot in the final. “I’m not shocked at all. I’m really proud of the way the boys fought it out. I’m really proud of the way the team showed character in the field and with the bowling as well. 245 against a team like Pakistan and on that wicket with the dew is not easy to defend, but I think the guys showed a lot of character,” Kohli said after the one-wicket loss to Pakistan here.
The defeat was crushing for the fact that India could have nailed it had it not been for successive sixes struck by Shahid Afridi in the final over of the game. “If you see the kind of batsmen they had and our bowlers with the inexperience they had, still to put up that kind of fight. I mean you see (Amit) Mishra, he gave only 28 runs in 10 overs, took two wickets, bowled brilliantly against the likes of Misbah, Hafeez, Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi. So I think it was a commendable effort and I’m really, really proud of the way the guys fought it out,” Kohli said.
“If you compare the experience of our team with their team, it’s massive, it’s huge. And in International cricket it really counts a lot. You can get away with it in Twenty20, but in the 50-over format you need to show a lot of character and that’s exactly what the boys did,” he added.
Defending a modest 246, Indian bowlers, particularly Mishra (2/28 from 10 overs) and R Ashwin (3/44), took the match to the wire and Pakistan were left needing nine runs off the last four balls with one wicket in hand. But Afridi’s big blows sealed the win which took Pakistan a step closer to the final.
Defending his decision to give Ashwin the last over, Kohli said: “I knew that if I put the seamers in before and Ashwin comes to bowl, they will go for it. Wickets are all we wanted. If Afridi and Umar Gul had just played singles they would have won easily. I took that risk of putting the seamers in and making them hit the ball. We almost pulled it off as well in the end.”
“Those last two sixes were not quite off the middle of the bat. One side was a small boundary, but that’s how it goes. We almost pulled it off.”
Showering more praise on Mishra, the skipper said the decision to draft in the leg-spinner was taken after their loss to Sri lanka in the previous match. “Even with the dew, if you can get the wicket to dry out, and these wickets are pretty dry, so if the bowler can bowl three deliveries in an over on an area, it’s much better for the spinner. He has more of a wicket-taking chance compared to the fast bowlers.
“With dew coming in at the end, the fast bowlers tend to go for plenty of runs. That was the idea in the last game itself. Rohit Sharma had contained them (Sri lanka) pretty nicely and there I made a decision that we should go with three spinners,” he explained.
‘Focussed on getting bonus point’
Trying to keep his and the team’s focus away from the mathematical calculations which give India a slight chance at reaching the Asia Cup finals, skipper Virat Kohli said he is solely aiming for a bonus point win against Afghanistan in their last league match.
India now need a miracle to progress to the final as they will have to win by a bonus point against Afghanistan and hope that Sri lanka lose both their remaining matches, one of them against Afghanistan on Monday. If both teams have the same number of points, it’s the net run rate that will come into count as per the Asian Cricket Council playing conditions.
“I’ve personally stopped putting my money on the games that are left in the tournament. All we can do is put up a strong performance in our game, try and get a bonus point, and then see. We’ll know by March 4 what happens,” Kohli said.
Citing the 2011-12 tri-nation Commonwealth Bank series in Australia when Sri lanka beat Australia to progress into the final, Kohli said: “In Australia as well, we were watching another game, and Sri lanka almost beat Australia and we could have made the finals, but that didn’t happen.”
“last time in Asia Cup as well we were hoping Sri lanka to beat Pakistan or Bangladesh, either of the two, but that didn’t happen.”