You can accept defeat but not the way we played: Kohli

TIL Desk Sports/ India skipper Virat Kohli on Wednesday questioned his team’s commitment after the series loss to South Africa, saying that the repeated fielding mistakes and soft dismissals by the batsmen were simply unacceptable.

In a fiery press conference which saw Kohli arguing with some reporters, the Indian captain pulled up his team-mates for repeated mistakes in the first two Tests, which they lost to surrender the three-match series 0-2.

“At the end of the day one team has to lose. As a team you always try to win. You can accept defeat but not the way we played, the way we let the advantage slip out of our hands, which is not acceptable from a team’s point of view,” a visibly agitated Kohli said after the 135-run drubbing in the second Test in Pretoria.

“So many soft dismissals hurt us a lot. Because you work so hard, prepare for a match, get into good situations, shift the game towards you, and then the momentum shifts because of these mistakes. “We have repeated these mistakes in both matches. That feels very bad as a team,” he said. Kohli said the players need to question themselves on what went wrong for them.