ND 610/6 decl
SL 205, 166-all out (49.3 Ovs)
India won by an innings and 239 runs
Kohli was also the Man of the Match, so there's that
Kohli:
The pitch was very good to bat on. It was on the slower side but there
was nothing much happening. I just wanted to bat the way I wanted to -
get into good positions and keep rotating strike. Try to keep the
scoreboard ticking. Get the runs quickly so we have time to bowl the
opposition out, something we'll have to do on tours. It's something I've
wanted to better myself (converting hundreds to daddy ones). For the
pure reason that the team should benefit. When you lose concentration
after hundred, you can lose two wickets quickly after that. The idea is
for the set batsman to carry on. It's important to buckle up after the
hundred so the team can be in a good position. My fitness also helped me
to push harder, bat for longer periods. It's a combination of many
things. Pujara, obviously he's been very consistent. Vijay was playing
after a while, he takes a lot of pride in playing Test cricket. He's a
technically sound player. Prepares well for Tests. I know how much it
hurts for him to have missed so many Tests in the recent past. Rohit
too, we believed in him. He's made a statement. When we speak of
combinations for the future, Rohit will definitely be in the fray. Bhuvi
has played a lot of cricket for India in the recent few months. Ishant,
Shami and Umesh haven't played so much recently. Playing first-class
cricket has helped them. Ishant was outstanding. Umesh was in good
rhythm too. Shami was outstanding in Kolkata. We have bowlers in good
rhythm. We need them to play as much as possible. We would like to think
that we want to prepare for that (South Africa tour). That's why we
asked for pitches that have a bit more life in it, bit of help for the
fast bowlers. This one deteriorated pretty quickly from the second day
onwards. Kolkata was a very nice wicket, something we ideally want to
have before South Africa. That is a big tour coming up. Everyone's
looking forward to that.
Chandimal:
It was a good toss to win. Unfortunately we were outplayed from the
first day. Our batting let us down again. When you're playing against
India, you've got to score 350-plus. Before we came here, we had a
game-plan. We said to the guys - if you get a start you have to go on.
Hopefully these youngsters will come back strong. Mathews is the
senior-most guy in the batting line-up. If he's not scoring, the batting
line-up has let us down. I'm sure he'll come back strong. We need to
get positives out of this. When we're bowling, our body language was
superb. Need to score more runs in the first innings. That's what we
need to discuss as a unit. This wicket was good to bat on for the first
three days. The bowling unit has done a really good job. But if you have
no runs on the board, they can't do anything.
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