Birmingham: Although India skipper Virat Kohli rued Saturday the lack of application and poor shot selection by his batsmen, spinner Ravi Ashwin sprang to their defence and said that the nature of the pitch made it very difficult for the batters.
“I think it was a great game. Glad to be part of such an exciting Test. Lot of times we came back, showed character there. But England were relentless. They made us work hard for the runs. It sets up the series nicely and gives us an idea about what we need to do going forward,” Kohli said after the match.
The captain added, “Our shot selection could have been better. We definitely need to apply ourselves better with the bat, but England came back superbly and we need to take the positives and move forward.”
Kohli praised the lower-order batsmen for showing grit and said India need to be fearless to make a comeback in the series. “There is a lot to learn from the lower-order in the first innings, Ishant and Umesh got stuck in the middle. Ishant showed character here, Umesh hung around with Hardik again,” he pointed out.
England skipper Joe Root credited the bowlers for setting up the match. “I am thrilled to bits. It has been a fantastic team performance despite the ups and downs the credit must go to the bowling unit. The easy thing to do is criticise the batsmen. We knew that if we stayed calm throughout, we would give ourselves the best chance to win,” Root stated.
It was a tough pitch to bat on. I think only Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and Virat (Kohli) were the only ones who could cope up with the nature of the wicket
Ravi Ashwin
Despite the 31-run loss in the first Test, Ashwin said the visitors are upbeat about their performances and have taken a lot of positives ahead in the five-Test series
“When you make runs and pick up wickets, you want to make sure that it is a killer blow (to the opposition) and you want to end up on the winning side. It gives you more pleasure out of the game and when it doesn’t happen, you feel a little deflated about it. This game was like a see-saw battle and there was enough in there for the pacers,” said Ashwin in the post-match media interaction.
“So they were always in the game and you do expect batsmen to get a ball that has their name on it. With that sort of a game hedging on the balance, I thought we competed really well throughout. There are a lot of things to be upbeat about, so (I am) not completely feeling deflated,” Ashwin added.
