Virat Kohli : We were about 30-35 runs short

01/27/2017

Virat Kohli, who suffered his first T20 defeat as a captain against England yesterday, has said that the Indian team fell short of a good score by around 30-35 runs. Kohli also added that he was happy to fill in as an opener for the injured Rohit Sharma as it provided better balance to the team.

India could only muster a score of 147 in their allotted 20 overs - a target that was easily chased down by the English. India's fabled top-order was unable to put England under any sort of pressure, with MS Dhoni being the top scorer with 36 runs. But the Indian captain refused to place all the blame at the feet of the batsman stating that the bowlers could have still made a game out of it.

“Today was a case where we were about 30-35 runs short. 150 was below par score to be honest on that sort of wicket. If we had bowled better, we could have made a good fight of the total we had on the board, but about 170-175 would have been a more competitive total," Kohli said after the match, reported Wisden India.

"I wouldn’t say a match-winning one still because the ball was coming on nicely. Still, it would have been one that we could have tried a few things with and put the pressure on the opposition. But with the start they had, it was difficult to pull things back and that’s where we needed a cushion of 35-40 runs which we didn’t have.”

In the first T20 in Kanpur, India experimented by promoting Kohli to the top of the innings as an opener, a role that proved to be highly successful in the IPL. Even though Kohli scored just 29 runs, he said that he was comfortable playing the role till Rohit Sharma regained full fitness as it gave the team more stability.

"I open in IPL and that is a T20 tournament. So I have an idea (of how to go about it) and that is why I went in to open. I did not go there to look special. Everyone anyway was expecting that. My opening gives more balance to the team," Kohli added.

"You can have an extra batsman in the middle order, a player like Suresh Raina gets more dangerous at 3, so when Rohit is not around as an opener, I can anytime step up because it provides more balance.

"This is just a case of Rohit not being there and because I have opened in IPL so I have a fair idea of providing balance and it also gives someone else opportunity rather than me batting at three. You can't ask someone to open if he has not done it in the past. It would be unfair on him," the Indian captain explained.

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