India vs England | Virat Kohli defends MS Dhoni after Lord’s defeat

07/15/2018

Following India’s defeat in the Lord’s ODI, Virat Kohli rejected the idea that MS Dhoni was to blame for the defeat stating that they wanted to take the run chase to the very end. While admitting that the wicket got slower in the second half, Kohli credited the English bowlers for their performance.

Even though MS Dhoni became only the fourth Indian to score 10,000 ODI runs, his innings left a lot to be desired. With the pitch slowing down in the second innings, the former skipper found it hard to get going and before he was eventually dismissed, he could add just 37 runs off 59 balls. However, Kohli refused to put the blame at the feet of his predecessor stating that the entire batting order let the team down.

“This thing comes up again and again when he is not able to play the way he does. And it is very unfortunate that people jump to conclusions very quickly. When he does well, people call him the best finisher ever and when things don’t go well, people just pounce on him. I mean we all have bad days in cricket. Today, I think was a bad day for everyone not just for him alone. Just as a batting unit we could not click and the idea was to take the innings deep,” said Kohli after the match.

“You don’t want to lose by 160-170 runs. You want to take it as deep as you can and he (Dhoni) has the experience (to get us through). But some days it just doesn’t come off. People just jump to conclusions, which we as a team do not and we totally believe in him and the abilities of all the other players.”

India got off to a decent start with the bat with both openers looking impressive at the start of the chase as they piled on 49 runs in just nine overs. However, over the next three overs, not only did India just add 12 runs but lost Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, and KL Rahul as well and found themselves in an awkward position of 61/3 in just 11 overs. India still appeared to be going well with Kohli and Suresh Raina guiding the side to a respectable 104/3 in 18 overs. However, with the introduction of Moeen Ali (1/42) and Adil Rashid (2/38), India were slowed down drastically in the middle overs. Even though Kohli credited the English bowlers for their performance, he pinpointed the early wickets as the main reason for India’s loss.

“We started off pretty well with the bat. It was a very good wicket to play on throughout the course of both the innings. It got slower in the latter half but I think when we lost three wickets in around three overs, it was something that really hurt us chasing 320 plus. You need wickets in hand. Not every time will you get across the line after losing three or four wickets up front. I thought that’s where we fell behind and we could never recover. And as I said the wicket got slower but credit to the (English) bowlers, they stuck to their guns and bowled really good lines and lengths.”

India vs England | Virat Kohli defends MS Dhoni after Lord’s defeat

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