Christchurch: India captain Virat Kohli on Monday admitted that his side made mistakes and were just not good enough to give New Zealand a tough fight in the two-match Test series which they lost 0-2.
India had begun their New Zealand tour on an emphatic note as they won the five-match T20I series 5-0. However, their form plummeted in the longer formats as first they were whitewashed in the three-match ODI series and then lost the two-Test series.
India, after losing the first Test by 10 wickets in Wellington, came out with another dismal performance as they lost the second match by seven wickets at the Hagley Oval.
“We are not going to take excuses from this tour, just the learning and the mistakes we committed and try and improve as we move forward,” said Kohli at the post-match presentation.
“T20Is were pretty good. In the ODIs, it was good to see the youngsters stepping up with Rohit (Sharma) not being available and me not getting runs. Those are a few positives, but as a Test team, we were not able to play the kind of cricket we wanted to.
“We need to accept we were not good enough, take it on the chin and improve those things,” he added.
Kohli admitted that his batsmen, including himself, were put under a tremendous amount of pressure by the New Zealand bowlers which in turn forced the Indian batters to make mistakes during the course of the Test series.
“We also need to give credit to the New Zealand bowlers, they bowled in the right areas long enough, created a lot of pressure. There were hardly any opportunities and that meant you have to play extravagant shots for runs than just keep rotating strike,” said Kohli.
“It was a combination of us not having the right kind of execution and New Zealand playing well. The consistency of their bowling was outstanding, forced us to do mistakes.
It was a poor performance from the Indian batters in both the Tests as they could manage just 165 and 191 in the two innings in Wellington while in the second Test, they could muster 242 and 124 runs respectively.
“We are usually a batting side that fights. Batsmen didn’t do enough for the bowlers to attack. It’s disappointing as a side when the batsmen don’t back up the effort of the bowlers,” said Kohli.
“To win series and matches outside the home you need to have a balanced performance with bat and ball and in the field — take those chances as well. We need to go back, understand what went wrong and correct those things moving forward,” he added.
The Indian skipper, however, refused to blame the toss and said it was just the players who couldn’t perform in the series.
“We are not a side that thinks about the result of the toss. Yes, it did give a bit of extra advantage to the bowlers in the first two hours of each Test, but as an international side playing so well over two, three seasons, you are expected to go out and execute in those conditions. We were not able to do that this time,” said Kohli.
Despite the whitewash, India stay at the top of the table in the ICC World Test Championship with 360 points. New Zealand, on the other hand, have moved on to the third spot with 180 points.
