India vs England | Putting pressure on other Indian batsmen will affect Virat Kohli, asserts Trevor Bayliss

Team India must still be in some sort of shock after a disastrous Day 4 that saw the visitors miss out on the target of 194 by 31 runs. Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik were at the crease at the start of the day but after Kohli’s dismissal, the rest of the Indian batsmen failed to chase down the target. The Indian batsman endured a difficult outing at Edgbaston as none of them managed to cross the 50-run mark apart from Kohli.

And English chief coach, Trevor Bayliss, suggested that if the English pacers continued to terrorize the Indian batting line-up it would directly add more responsibility on the shoulders of the Indian skipper.

“If Virat Kohli is not the best batsman (in the world), he’s very close to it. The way he played the first and second innings was high-class stuff. If we can put pressure on the other batsmen in the Indian team, that’s going to add to the pressure on him.

“I don’t think it’s any different for us. We’ve got a few guys who are not necessarily cemented in the team and that put extra pressure on people like Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow” Bayliss told reporters.

Bayliss further heaped praise on Kohli as he lauded his efforts of almost single-handedly dragging the Indian team to a win with a hard-fought 51 in the second innings against the likes of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, and Sam Curran.

“In this first Test, the four innings had wickets falling left, right and center – all batsmen were in trouble, even Kohli, who I don’t think was all that comfortable early on. It was difficult to bat, probably more difficult than it looked from outside,” the England coach said.

Bayliss added that he knew that the Indian would learn from the mistakes committed just as he backed his own batsmen to tackle spinners with more caution in the rest of the series.

“India are a very good team. We’re very much in the hunt here. When the ball’s moving, we’ve shown that a few of their guys do struggle against the moving ball. I’m sure that they’ll be going away working out how they can play it as we’re going working on how to play the off spin,” Bayliss added.