From the start, the series has been dominated by the ball and India captain Virat Kohli isn’t complaining. India have after all, beaten the No.1 Test team. So what if it has come at the cost of sacrificing personal batting milestones? “I don’t mind compromising on (batsmen’s) averages as long as we are winning Test matches. We are not playing for records, we are not playing for numbers or averages,” Kohli said after India’s series win.
Kohli, however, acknowledged the poor application on the part of his batsmen. “We haven’t applied ourselves properly. It’s been two-odd guys every innings and that does not get you to a big total. It was more a case of batsmen making mistakes rather than the ball doing some crazy things out in the middle.”
Kohli also didn’t forget Amit Mishra’s contribution. “Today, when the (Amla-Du Plesis) partnership was going, he actually held the ball and told me that ‘I will get a wicket’ and in about three overs he got Hashim out.”
TOUGHEST TESTS FOR ME: AMLA
South Africa skipper Hashim Amla admitted that the last three Tests were the toughest of his career. “Probably three of the toughest I have experienced in my Test career. The surface was probably the toughest I have had as well, and the cricket itself was really difficult. So credit to India, they bowled well and unfortunately we ended up on the wrong side of this game,” Amla said on Friday.”But to play on conditions like this, as I said before, I haven’t played on this before in my life, so I suppose it’s a bit of consolation, because it was really challenging.”
When asked whether they found the balance between attack and defence, Amla differed, “Firstly, in terms of not throwing our wickets away, I think we could have still ended up all out for 70 or 100 in the second innings. There were so many plays and misses, edges that could have gone to hand, so it’s easy to say that, how we batted in the second innings, we could have batted in the first innings, but I think the circumstances were different.” Amla also pointed out that both teams have struggled in these conditions.