India vs Australia | Despite win, Ishant Sharma was annoyed by his no-balls problem, reveals Virat Kohli

12/10/2018

Indian skipper Virat Kohli has revealed that fast bowling spearhead Ishant Sharma was annoyed at himself for bowling no-balls at crucial stages of the match despite being the senior bowler in the team. The Indian team defeated Australia by 31 runs in a riveting first Test of the four match series.

India defeated hosts Australia at the Adelaide Oval in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to take an early 1-0 lead in the four match Test series. While everyone in the Indian team was celebrating the victory, Ishant Sharma was annoyed at bowling untimely no-balls. Particularly the one he bowled few balls before the final Australian wicket fell. On that ball he could have got the dangerous looking Nathan Lyon and win India the victory but instead his delivery was declared a no-ball and Lyon went unbeaten on a personal score 38 runs.

"Ishant was the most pissed off right now," Kohli said after the match.

"We were all celebrating but he was really, really angry with himself and we asked him why and he said, 'I cannot afford to bowl a no-ball being a senior guy and having played so much cricket in the crunch situation when the umpire could have given that out'.

"So that could have been the difference at a more important stage in the series."

Apart from the no-ball in the dying moments of the match to Nathan Lyon, Sharma, earlier in the match got Aaron Finch plumb in-front and the umpire declared Finch out. But the Australian reviewed the decision and the cameras showed Sharma overstepping thus giving relief to the Australian camp. But captain Kohli stressed that players in the team are matured enough to improve themselves hence nobody needs to coach them like school kids.

"It's not a school-team environment here," said Kohli.

"So, look, guys take ownership of those things but they can commit mistakes. As long as the attitude is right, we look to correct those mistakes.

"So this incident that's happened, I am sure Ishant is going to be obsessed about not doing it again, just like how we improved our batting straight away in the second innings at the top of the order. Guys want to learn as soon as they can, take responsibility themselves, and they are not hiding from it.

Kohli also emphasised on the fact that nobody is trying to avoid the topic but when players take responsibilities for their mistakes then it is the right attitude to have for any player at the International level.

"It's not a case of not wanting to talk about it, but they are unhappy themselves that they made a mistake at a crunch situation and, come that situation again, they don't want to do it. So that's the most you can ask from any player playing for their country and that's certainly the right attitude to have."

India vs Australia | Despite win, Ishant Sharma was annoyed by his no-balls problem, reveals Virat Kohli

Comments

0 Comments