Virat Kohli provides massive update on Pandya’s bowling: Hardik Pandya’s absence in the bowling department hurt India in Sydney.
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India captain Virat Kohli reacted to his team’s 66-run loss in the first ODI of the ongoing tour of Australia by saying that his batsmen wanting to play positively in a 375-run chase witnessed the fall of quick wickets.
Kohli, who failed to convert his start of 21 (21) which comprised of two fours and a six, hailed batsman Hardik Pandya’s awe-inspiring fifth ODI half-century which kept India in the game for a long time.
“From the batting point of view, we had a chat briefly after the game – all of us committed to playing positively and that’s why you saw everyone go out there and play with intent. We just need to have a big innings from the top three, 130 or 140, which didn’t happen unfortunately.
“Hardik’s [Pandya] innings was an example of that [intent]. At no stage did we think we might not get there. We committed to playing positive cricket and we are going to do that going forward as well. When teams put up large totals, you have to have a plan,” Kohli was quoted as saying during the post-match presentation ceremony.
Virat Kohli provides massive update on Pandya’s bowling
After Australia captain Aaron Finch won the toss and chose to bat, India looked lacklustre both as a bowling and fielding unit. While the Indian bowlers appeared to have minimal answers against the opposition batsmen, fielders dropping several catches and giving away boundaries didn’t help their case either.
Pandya, who scored a career-best 90 (76) is still not fit enough to take the bowling responsibility and the same hampers India especially when their bowlers are having an off-day as they don’t have any other batsman who bowls.
While Kohli pointed out the “disappointing” body language, he also talked about how Pandya’s absence as a bowler hurt them and Australia benefited from the availability of genuine all-rounders.
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“The body language after 25-26 overs was disappointing. A quality side will hurt you [if you have fielding lapses]. We’ll have to find out ways of getting a few overs from a few part-timers in the side. Unfortunately, Hardik [Pandya] is not ready to bowl yet so we have to accept that and work around it.
“That is an area we have looked at, which is a very big part of any team balance. [Marcus] Stoinis and Glenn [Maxwell] do it for Australia. The key to keeping the batsmen in check is picking up wickets and we couldn’t do that,” Kohli added.
