CAPE TOWN: The eventual result of this first Test, one that flashed on the giant screen soon after the last Indian wicket fell, will be remembered to tell tales of a thrilling South African win. What needs to be remembered as well, though, is that the game, for three-fourth of the contest, remained a well-fought one between the two teams.
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'Losing wickets in a heap cost us the game'It was India’s batting on Day Four, falling prey to the pace, bounce and swing of South Africa lethal attack, that led to the eventual 72-run loss.
Virat Kohli acknowledged this as he shook his head in disappointment and said: “Our batting let us down”. Coming from the skipper, who happens to be among the team’s leading Test batsman, it was a telling admission. “Twenty wickets are the priority. But if your batsmen don’t bat well then it doesn’t matter. We needed to bat better. If not one big partnership, at least every wicket adding 30-35 would have done the job for us. We needed to show more character with the bat, there is no question about it,” he said.
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Familiar batting woes jolt India out of Cape Town dreamThe conditions in Cape Town did not get any easier to bat after rain had disrupted a full day’s play on Day Three. The bounce remained intact and the ball rose rapidly off the pitch from the good length, and at times just short of it, to take batsmen by surprise. From an India perspective, someone needed to take a disruptive approach if the line of the South African attack had to be disturbed.
Kohli did just that as he tried getting into a slightly more aggressive mode. “You can’t just stand there and take whatever is coming your way and not have intent at all. You might get out, but it’s important to keep coming at the bowler and making them feel that if you make an error I am going to score,” he said.
His 28, inclusive of four boundaries, before falling to Vernon Philander’s incoming delivery, signalled that intent to some extent. “That message needs to go pretty strongly and collectively. I think Hardik did that really well in the first innings, Ash (Ashwin) was really positive in the second innings but if five-six of us can have that mindset, starting from the top, it will really create that sort of momentum for us,” he said.
Kohli doesn’t think the team suffered from lack of preparation. “Even they got out for 130 in the second innings and they play here all the time. It was a wicket where things were happening every day. We rectified the errors we made in the first innings by letting them off after having them at 12-3. We plugged that gap pretty nicely in the morning today but again we needed someone to go out there and get 75 or 80 and not 20-25-30 runs,”