With the help of 8 wicket tone from Ravindra Jadeja and 8 wickets from Ashwin, India won the first test match at Mohali stadium against South Africa as South African batting line-up got packed up at just a total score of 109 runs at day 3 of the Mohali test.
Ravindra Jadeja was declared as the man of the match for his valuable 38 runs in first inning and total eight wickets in both the innings, which was the main cause of the South African loss against India.
Only four South African batsmen could make it possible to score in two digits and hence only a single long partnership for seventh wicket between Simon and Zyl of 42 runs became a sign of resistance from Africans.
With this victory, India took 1-0 lead in the test series of four test match against South Africa.
Kohli said after winning the first test match on home ground under his captaincy, "It feels great to win the first game as captain at home. It was a special occasion. It's a young team, this win was important for us. I think the team deserves a lot of credit for the way we played. I was pretty confident of our bowlers, but at the same time we were also wary of the quality of their batsmen. We thought, if we are finding it difficult, then it is going to be tough for them as well. Throughout the game there were a lot of soft dismissals.
"Obviously the performances in the domestic circuit helped as I played on turning tracks in Rajkot. I scored three fifties on those tracks as well, so it helped me a lot. I did all the hard work. This was the comeback game for me so I was just trying to play positive cricket. I was just trying to spend time in the middle and rotate the strike. I was under a lot of pressure, but I am very happy that I proved myself again," Jadeja said after receiving the man of the match trophy.
Kohli also agreed that lack of domestic cricket could have led the players to lose touch against spinners, when asked about the failure against South African spinners he said, "Could be.We have played a lot of cricket away from home and we have not played a lot of cricket on the turning wickets.And as you rightly said, we have not played a lot of domestic cricket.That could be the case.
"Obviously there could be a reason that, it is always said that Indians are very good players of spin, Asians are very good players of spin. That might put pressure over a few guys saying that we have to play spin well. And if that doesn't happen once or twice, it starts building up. It could be anything. The individuals need to be spoken to individually," he further added about failure against spinners.
Replying to a query on getting fast pitches for Indian pacers getting ready for foreign tour, Kohli said, "It all comes down to how many wickets the spinners get abroad. I don't think we should compare the two things. Fast bowlers should be better but for that we don't need to alter our home conditions.
"We can prepare such wickets and hold camps, get those kind of tracks in first-class cricket, but that can't happen on a regular basis because when we talk of home conditions then in India we have a certain kind of pitches.
"The bounce and pace of South Africa and swing of England cannot be replicated here. Eventually it becomes a batting wicket which is not result oriented. If you want to play and compete in Tests then the wickets should be result oriented. When we played in Sri Lanka the first wicket and the second wicket was turning, third wicket was seaming but all were result oriented.
"So we don't have a problem with that. If a fast track can be prepared somewhere fine, it will be our decision that we want that kind of wicket, whether our pacers want to bowl on that kind of wicket."
Indian captain spoke about Indian batsmen faltering against spin in the sub-continent in recent years.
"See we have played spin relatively badly in the past. Once it happened in Galle. I think the problem has been that we lost wickets too quickly. If we get a stand and then lose one, we've lost two three... so that needs to improve. Apart from that everyone plays spin well. It's just a mindset thing.
"You can think of five different things while playing a stroke, thinking that the ball might go there. You need to think of only one thing. If you want to hit a ball somewhere, you need to think about only that. That sort of confidence is something only an individual can instill in himself.
"We have spoken about that -- having clarity of mind, playing fearless cricket. I think that's what we are going to stress on again. Next time around the guys are going to back themselves more and face the situation front on rather than thinking what could have been done. Rather just be out there and be sure of what you want to do and have no fear in executing what you want to do," said Kohli.
"At times we have played spin well. In the second innings is when we have not played spin well, as far as I have experienced. In the first innings we have played spin relatively well. I think it's a mindset thing where some sort of fear creeps in and you're not able to make the right decisions. Doesn't matter if its spin or pace. More often than not, it has happened against spin. I think that is an area we can improve on," Kohli added in his statement about his planning against spin attack.
Indian captain rejected the criticism of the pitch for the first test match and said "There were no demons on the pitch. If we had applied ourselves better, we could have set a bigger target. The ball did not turn square, but it is just that the batsmen played bad shots. I think this was more a bowler's game. The spinners stood out. "
"Those two (Vijay and Pujara) are the most solid guys we have in the team. Anybody can play, but it is how you turn up mentally on the day that counts. Important contributions from everyone overall", Kohli said about the solid partnership between Vijay and Pujara.
Talking about Jadeja's performance, captain Kohli stated" "I am really happy for him (Jadeja). He went out of the team, played domestic cricket, got a lot of wickets and scored runs as well. He's mentally feeling good. It's hard to find people with all-round abilities. If he keeps his mental strength, he can be a match-winner for India in the future as well."
Talking about the performance of the Indian bowlers, Indian captain stated,"Yes, the match wasn't as comfortable as the margin suggests. I wouldn't say it was very very close. I would say if they had wickets in hand then it could have been interesting in the fourth innings. Apart from that I don't really want to get into the deficiencies of the opposition team at the mistakes they made. I am sure they want to reflect on that and so do we as a batting unit.
"We have not performed to our potential in this game, the bowlers have stepped up. Even if the ball is turning how much the bowler needs to pitch the ball up to get the ball in the right areas. So they should get credit to that.
"Even the fast bowlers in both the innings, they bowled with good pace even in the last innings their spells were very important to make the batsmen feel they are not getting easy runs from any corner. So I think that was very very important as far as the whole bowling unit bowling together as well was concerned. I would prefer to look at our strengths and weaknesses," he added.
South African captain Hashim Amla pointed out that few wrong decisions from the umpires went against his team and said"The chat that we had in our meetings was that the ball was not turning that much actually.And i think a lot of dismissals actually in both teams, there were quiet a few dismissals due to lack of turn more than due to excess of turn.
"Sometimes those are the more difficult pitches to play on.In saying that , the chat was that the ball was not turning as much but there a few errors in decision making that kind of cost us a bit. We actually kept it as simple as possible, that it is not turning as much.If you get a good ball that turns, so be it" said South African captain after loosing the opening test of the four test match series.
"It probably boils down to the last innings. I think 200 was a good total for us, but 150 would have been a bit more realistic. There were a few soft dismissals during the chase, credit to India, they played well. I was surprised myself with my dismissal, I think it was a brain-freeze. It's unfortunate that we lost 4-5 wickets and put pressure on the lower-order. Like how Stiaan (van Zyl) showed, one could bat on this surface. I am extremely proud of the way the boys performed. Batting first was easy and we did well to restrict India to 201. We kept ourselves in the game right till the last session, but credit to India, they played well", South African captain added .
Ravindra Jadeja was declared as the man of the match for his valuable 38 runs in first inning and total eight wickets in both the innings, which was the main cause of the South African loss against India.
Only four South African batsmen could make it possible to score in two digits and hence only a single long partnership for seventh wicket between Simon and Zyl of 42 runs became a sign of resistance from Africans.
With this victory, India took 1-0 lead in the test series of four test match against South Africa.
Kohli said after winning the first test match on home ground under his captaincy, "It feels great to win the first game as captain at home. It was a special occasion. It's a young team, this win was important for us. I think the team deserves a lot of credit for the way we played. I was pretty confident of our bowlers, but at the same time we were also wary of the quality of their batsmen. We thought, if we are finding it difficult, then it is going to be tough for them as well. Throughout the game there were a lot of soft dismissals.
"Obviously the performances in the domestic circuit helped as I played on turning tracks in Rajkot. I scored three fifties on those tracks as well, so it helped me a lot. I did all the hard work. This was the comeback game for me so I was just trying to play positive cricket. I was just trying to spend time in the middle and rotate the strike. I was under a lot of pressure, but I am very happy that I proved myself again," Jadeja said after receiving the man of the match trophy.
"Obviously there could be a reason that, it is always said that Indians are very good players of spin, Asians are very good players of spin. That might put pressure over a few guys saying that we have to play spin well. And if that doesn't happen once or twice, it starts building up. It could be anything. The individuals need to be spoken to individually," he further added about failure against spinners.
Replying to a query on getting fast pitches for Indian pacers getting ready for foreign tour, Kohli said, "It all comes down to how many wickets the spinners get abroad. I don't think we should compare the two things. Fast bowlers should be better but for that we don't need to alter our home conditions.
"We can prepare such wickets and hold camps, get those kind of tracks in first-class cricket, but that can't happen on a regular basis because when we talk of home conditions then in India we have a certain kind of pitches.
"The bounce and pace of South Africa and swing of England cannot be replicated here. Eventually it becomes a batting wicket which is not result oriented. If you want to play and compete in Tests then the wickets should be result oriented. When we played in Sri Lanka the first wicket and the second wicket was turning, third wicket was seaming but all were result oriented.
"So we don't have a problem with that. If a fast track can be prepared somewhere fine, it will be our decision that we want that kind of wicket, whether our pacers want to bowl on that kind of wicket."
Indian captain spoke about Indian batsmen faltering against spin in the sub-continent in recent years.
"See we have played spin relatively badly in the past. Once it happened in Galle. I think the problem has been that we lost wickets too quickly. If we get a stand and then lose one, we've lost two three... so that needs to improve. Apart from that everyone plays spin well. It's just a mindset thing.
"You can think of five different things while playing a stroke, thinking that the ball might go there. You need to think of only one thing. If you want to hit a ball somewhere, you need to think about only that. That sort of confidence is something only an individual can instill in himself.
"We have spoken about that -- having clarity of mind, playing fearless cricket. I think that's what we are going to stress on again. Next time around the guys are going to back themselves more and face the situation front on rather than thinking what could have been done. Rather just be out there and be sure of what you want to do and have no fear in executing what you want to do," said Kohli.
"At times we have played spin well. In the second innings is when we have not played spin well, as far as I have experienced. In the first innings we have played spin relatively well. I think it's a mindset thing where some sort of fear creeps in and you're not able to make the right decisions. Doesn't matter if its spin or pace. More often than not, it has happened against spin. I think that is an area we can improve on," Kohli added in his statement about his planning against spin attack.
Indian captain rejected the criticism of the pitch for the first test match and said "There were no demons on the pitch. If we had applied ourselves better, we could have set a bigger target. The ball did not turn square, but it is just that the batsmen played bad shots. I think this was more a bowler's game. The spinners stood out. "
"Those two (Vijay and Pujara) are the most solid guys we have in the team. Anybody can play, but it is how you turn up mentally on the day that counts. Important contributions from everyone overall", Kohli said about the solid partnership between Vijay and Pujara.
Talking about Jadeja's performance, captain Kohli stated" "I am really happy for him (Jadeja). He went out of the team, played domestic cricket, got a lot of wickets and scored runs as well. He's mentally feeling good. It's hard to find people with all-round abilities. If he keeps his mental strength, he can be a match-winner for India in the future as well."
Talking about the performance of the Indian bowlers, Indian captain stated,"Yes, the match wasn't as comfortable as the margin suggests. I wouldn't say it was very very close. I would say if they had wickets in hand then it could have been interesting in the fourth innings. Apart from that I don't really want to get into the deficiencies of the opposition team at the mistakes they made. I am sure they want to reflect on that and so do we as a batting unit.
"We have not performed to our potential in this game, the bowlers have stepped up. Even if the ball is turning how much the bowler needs to pitch the ball up to get the ball in the right areas. So they should get credit to that.
"Even the fast bowlers in both the innings, they bowled with good pace even in the last innings their spells were very important to make the batsmen feel they are not getting easy runs from any corner. So I think that was very very important as far as the whole bowling unit bowling together as well was concerned. I would prefer to look at our strengths and weaknesses," he added.
South African captain Hashim Amla pointed out that few wrong decisions from the umpires went against his team and said"The chat that we had in our meetings was that the ball was not turning that much actually.And i think a lot of dismissals actually in both teams, there were quiet a few dismissals due to lack of turn more than due to excess of turn.
"Sometimes those are the more difficult pitches to play on.In saying that , the chat was that the ball was not turning as much but there a few errors in decision making that kind of cost us a bit. We actually kept it as simple as possible, that it is not turning as much.If you get a good ball that turns, so be it" said South African captain after loosing the opening test of the four test match series.
"It probably boils down to the last innings. I think 200 was a good total for us, but 150 would have been a bit more realistic. There were a few soft dismissals during the chase, credit to India, they played well. I was surprised myself with my dismissal, I think it was a brain-freeze. It's unfortunate that we lost 4-5 wickets and put pressure on the lower-order. Like how Stiaan (van Zyl) showed, one could bat on this surface. I am extremely proud of the way the boys performed. Batting first was easy and we did well to restrict India to 201. We kept ourselves in the game right till the last session, but credit to India, they played well", South African captain added .
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