Happy with preparations for South Africa, says Kohli

Johannesburg,, Jan 23 : India skipper Virat Kohli on Tuesday said he was happy with the preparations for the South Africa tour and it was their own mistakes that cost them the Test series.

India were outplayed in the first two Tests and have already conceded an insurmountable 0-2 deficit.

“I personally don’t feel that we didn’t feel prepared starting this series, I won’t sit here and point that out after losing a Test series,” Kohli told reporters here.

“We had a week to prepare ourselves, five days because one day we were travelling. So we had that and we went ahead with that. As I said, we are not going to sit and think of outside factors that made us lose.

“It was our errors, our mistakes of not capitalising on situations that led us to the result being 2-0 so far. I am not pinpointing anything else, I think those talks are left for later planning for future,” he said.

Talking about the pitch, Kohli said the wicket looks like an archetypal South African wicket — hard and dry with plenty of bounce — which often provides lots of seam movement up front.

“Well it’s definitely very different from the last game. I would say similar to Cape Town but a bit more grass on it which we expected. Yeah, it’s going to a very lively wicket throughout the course of the Test match,” Kohli said.

“I think it’s going to be a typical Wanderers wicket where there’s good grass, the surface is going to be hard and good bounce also; pretty much like what was expected,” he added.

Kohli also hinted at having an all-seam attack in the upcoming match.

“We would definitely look at that option (all-seam attack). I am sure both the teams would be thinking about those options, because, as I said, we have taken 40 wickets so far and we need to figure out what’s the best way to pick up 20 wickets again in this Test match.

“We are going to have a discussion on that as well, and the other combinations of the whole team as well,” Kohli added.

IANS