‘Hurt’ India will not repeat Pune mistakes, vows Kohli

Saturday, 4 March 2017 00:19 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: India have learnt their lessons from the debacle in Pune and will not repeat the mistakes in the second test against Australia, Captain Virat Kohli said on Friday.

Kohli’s men entered the series with a 19-test unbeaten streak but were thumped by 333 runs inside three days on a spin-friendly track in the series opener in Pune.

Kohli blamed the setback on his team’s lack of intent but promised a better display in the second test starting on Saturday.

“Obviously you want to forget if a result does not go your way. But it is important the loss should hurt you and you learn from that,” Kohli told reporters at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

“If you play well every day, every session, then you will win the test match. We didn’t do that. We understand that and we will improve on those areas till the end of the series.

“But I assure you that you will not see a repeat of that kind of performance.”

India were bundled out for 105 and 107 in their two innings with Australia left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe picking up 12 wickets in the test match.

The poor performance drew flak from the local media but Kohli, 28, said the players were not really perturbed.

“Our focus was always to win games, every game that we play and the focus remains the same. It doesn’t matter whether we lose or win. It’s the way we play,” he said.

“The last game was a disappointment in the way we played. It wasn’t more of the result ... When you don’t have enough intent during the game and you lose the game, that’s when it hurts.

“I think that’s all that we made of it. The comments or the headlines don’t matter to us, they never have. We don’t base our cricket on that stuff.”

Kohli said the Indian team had multiple combinations in mind for the Bengaluru match and had not yet taken a call on their playing eleven.

Before Pune, India’s last defeat came at Galle in 2015 in the first test against Sri Lanka. The Kohli-led side then won the next two matches of the series to start a strong run.

“I can assure you that everyone is taking this as a massive challenge and everyone is raring to turn things around in the series and play the kind of cricket that we all know that we can play and not take a backward step at any stage.”

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