Kohli promises same India intensity despite lost series

Virat Kohli insists India will not let their standards drop in the final Test against England despite the series already being out of reach.

The tourists fell to a 60-run loss on the fourth day at the Rose Bowl on Sunday, Joe Root’s side sealing an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series.

With the final instalment set to begin at the Oval on Friday, Kohli promised his team would approach the game with the same vigour as when the series was still alive.

“We are not feeling that in the last Test we will not play with intensity,” he said.

“We still have one opportunity to improve our mistakes and to learn to capitalise during pressure situations.”

England win the 4th Test by 60 runs and take an unassailable lead of 3-1 in the five match Test series.#ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/YKknZmdRM2

— BCCI (@BCCI) September 2, 2018
India have been made to rue not pressing home their advantage on a couple of occasions during the tour. In the first Test at Edgbaston England were only 100 ahead at 87-7 in the second innings before Sam Curran’s 63 turned the tide, and at the Rose Bowl the hosts were 86-6 batting first before recovering to 246 all out.

“We have the ability and that is why we are getting close to a result, and we have belief in that ability,” Kohli said.

“But when a pressure situation comes, how we react to it is something we have to work on a bit, something everyone is ready to work on.

“We can look at the scoreboard and say we were only 30 runs away or 50 runs away, but we have to recognise that when we are in the midst of the situation, and not later.

“We know that we have played good cricket, but we cannot say again and again to ourselves that we have competed. When you come so close, there is an art of crossing the line as well, which we will have to learn.

“You understand that cricket is not always defined by the scorecard – that’s just a thing to look at. You might be 3-0 up in a five-match series, and the opposition manage to win the last two and say it’s a close series, but you know it’s actually not close.

“But when you’re going see-saw in every game apart from Lord’s, I would not count that, then you understand that it was a competitive and hard-fought series victory for England.

“We definitely pushed England to earn a victory and they played better cricket than us for longer periods. That’s why they won the match.”