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No Fear No Favour

Virat Kohli loses his cool during press conference after series loss

India, on Wednesday, lost the second Test against South Africa by 135 runs and subsequently lost the series as well. While the bowlers were up to the mark in the first two Tests, the batsmen failed to put up a good show and surrendered against the lethal South African bowling.

Virat Kohli is a passionate personalty and thus, it would have been surprising if there weren’t any fireworks in the post-match press conference. The pyrotechnics were seen in Kohli’s interaction with a South African journalist who questioned the skipper about the team changing their XI for every Test.

“We failed to get a good partnership and take lead. We have let ourselves down. The bowlers have done the job but the batsmen have let the team down. I want to leave everything on the field. That’s the way I play,” said skipper Virat Kohli at the post-match ceremony.

“What is the best 11?” snapped Kohli when asked if India played the best combination in “sub-continental” conditions at Centurion.
“If we had won this, was this the best 11? We don’t decide the 11 according to results. You are telling me that you could have played the best 11. You tell me the best 11 and we will play that,” the skipper went on.

Kohli was next asked about the trend of fielding different teams in all the Test matches under him and whether the team was losing because of too much chopping and changing.

“How many Test matches have we won out of 34? How many have we won? How many have we won? 21 wins (20 actually). Two losses. How many draws? Does it matter? Wherever we play we try to do our best. I’m here to answer your questions, not to fight with you,” he countered.

“We have not come here just to participate. And answering your question, how many times did South Africa come into the game in India?” he added.

Virat Kohli, since taking over as Test captain in 2014, has never gone to a new Test without at least one change from the previous one. In the two Test matches in South Africa, his decision to drop Ajinkya Rahane for Rohit Sharma raised a few eyebrows. Kohli maintained that Sharma had been selected on the basis of his “current form” which means that it was based on his performance against Sri Lanka at home.

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