What Kohli and Root said about the result of the match

India vs England: 3rd Test match, Headingley

England won the 3rd Test match against India by a huge margin of an innings and 76 runs. It was a clinical performance by the English side. Let’s see what the captains had to say.

What Virat Kohli had to say about the defeat:

Virat Kohli, the losing captain, when asked about what went wrong for the visitors, said,” It’s down to scoreboard pressure. We knew we were up against it when we were out for 80 and the opposition put up a big score. We put up crucial partnerships and saw the day through, but the pressure from the English bowlers was brilliant this morning and we didn’t respond well. Batting collapses can happen in this country, the pitch was good to bat on, but their discipline with the ball forced us to make a few mistakes, and it was difficult to deal with spells where we weren’t getting runs. We didn’t make good decisions as a batting side. The pitch looked good to bat on, and when England batted it hadn’t changed much, so they had a lot more intent with the bat, made better decisions. They were the deserving side to win, to be honest.”

There have been debates about whether India has enough batting depth, whether they should bring in an all-rounder. When asked about it, Kohli explained, “You could say that we don’t have enough batting depth, but the top order has to give enough runs to the lower middle order to step up. The lower order can’t bail the team out all the time. We don’t have much other than the batting in the second innings to take from this game in terms of positives. Playing another spinner would depend on the pitch and we’ll take a call later. It depends on the moisture and how it will hold up for five days. The pressure from the fourth seamer is important sometimes and sometimes we have to make sure taking only three seamers means that the spinners have to come in quickly. We need to correct our flaws quickly and we’ve done this before, and we look forward to the Oval Test.“

Joe Root explains what they did right

The winning captain, Root, said about the win, “It was a fantastic and clinical performance from the bowlers. The two big lads put loads of pressure with three maidens, and we had a really good opportunity to take wickets and we took them ruthlessly. We know we are capable of performances like this, and we have the talent, that opening stand was fantastic too. We controlled and hung in with the new ball, and we reaped the rewards. Anderson churns out performances like that and that’s why he’s the GOAT of Test cricket. He’s very fit and sets an example for the other bowlers. Dawid played beautifully and started a bit cautiously, but once he got going, he was fluent like he’d been playing the last few years, so the international experience came to the fore. As a batter, you are expected to go out and score every time and I am happy I’ve managed to score a few. It’s been a while since I got a hundred in my home ground and I hope we can carry this form forward as a team into the Oval.”