Sydney: India captain Virat Kohli hinted Tuesday that he might skip the three-day pink-ball warm-up game. The pink-ball game will be played ahead of the eagerly-awaited Test series against Australia. Virat Kohli’s comments came Friday after an intense limited-overs leg of the tour. The Australians won the ODI series 2-1 while the Indians responded by winning the T20I series by an identical margin.
The tour game against Australia A is due to begin in three days’ time. It will be India’s final tune-up before the opening day-night Test in Adelaide from December 17. The Test will also be played with the pink ball.
“I will wake up tomorrow and see if I can play the tour match. Playing it on and off is not my thing. I like to play the full game. I will talk to our physio and then decide on my participation,” Kohli said after the third T20I ended Tuesday.
Kohli also said he was pleased with the way his side fought. They found ways to win matches from tough situations.
“We are finding ways to come back and give the opposition a scare. The T20I series win is a little asterisk for us to finish the 2020 season on a high,” Kohli pointed out.
Like in the previous game, Hardik Pandya, in the company of Kohli, again threatened to win the game for India after he had hit a couple of sixes.
“At one stage when Hardik started going we thought we could pull it off. The middle over phase during our batting cost us the game. A partnership of 30-odd would’ve made it easier for Hardik,” Kohli stated.
Kohli also thanked the sports-loving Australian crowd for the manner in which it turned up despite the threat posed by COVID-19.
“I feel the crowd was a factor as well, it’s always giving you a dimension of motivation. Our crowd pulls us through sometimes, and Australia has got great support too. We as players feed off the crowd’s energy.”
Kohli said he is looking forward to the Tests. He asserted the current team are stronger than the one that made history by winning their first Test series Down Under two years ago.
“We need to take the same competitive attitude into the Tests, and having played here a few times, we can score runs as well. Once it’s time to capitalise and score, we need to do that session by session. I’m sure the current side are stronger than last time,” Kohli said.
Australian Mitchell Swepson was named the man of the match for returning fine figures of 3/23. Among his three wickets one was that of in-form Shikhar Dhawan.
“I am happy to get this award, and win the game for my side. I think that was a bit of a skidder, but I’m happy to say that I gave it a bit of a rip and got that wicket (of Shreyas Iyer),” Swepson said.