Published: Jan 23, 2018, 07:18 PM (IST)
Edited: Jan 23, 2018, 07:18 PM (IST)
India are set to play the final Test of the Freedom Series at the Wanderers Stadium against South Africa, starting January 24. India have lost the series, trailing the home side by 0-2. Indian teams performance has been criticised by many cricket legends and TV experts after back-to-back losses. However, Virat Kohli has urged team members to stand up and rectify their mistakes from Cape Town and Centurion defeats.
Speaking in the pre-match press conference, Kohli said: “Everyone has been spoken to individually as to what went wrong, what happened and why it happened. The guys have taken it well. Any time that you step on to the field, it is an opportunity to correct your mistakes and that is how you progress at the international level.”
“I am sure everyone is looking forward to rectifying those mistakes and, if they are in the same positions (again), to consolidate those positions,” Kohli added.
Kohli believes the team has many positives to take despite the defeats. He also admitted that improved batting show can increase their chances of winning.
“We have looked at the positives from the first two games as well. It is not many times on overseas tours that we have taken 40 wickets in two Tests. If the bowlers can continue doing their job, whichever team bats better can win the Test match. It’s a chance for everyone to step up and turn things around,” he concluded.
He also spoke about India’s lack of preparations. He said: “I personally don’t feel that we didn’t feel prepared starting this series. I won’t sit here and point that out after losing a Test series. We had a week to prepare ourselves, five days because one day we were travelling. So we had that and we went ahead with that. As I said, we are not going to sit and think of outside factors that made us lose. It was our errors, our mistakes of not capitalising on situations that led us to the result being 2-0 so far.”
