The last time India lost a T20I before Tuesday’s game was exactly a year ago, but rather than sulk after a narrow defeat, captain Virat Kohli chose to look at the big picture.
The triumph against Australia in Australia came despite India resting its key pacers, making it all the more special. Kohli highlighted the team’s never-say-die attitude as one of the main reasons for the 2-1 victory.
“This was a squad that had players who haven’t had so much exposure at the international level — we still played a few guys that were playing their first few games — and from that point of view it was a really nice performance,” Kohli said after the dead rubber at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
“Especially after losing the first two ODIs, we came back in the third and then we carried that momentum forward; fighting back in the first T20 and even tonight’s game was close, so… I think the standout is the guys are not giving up and someone’s putting their hand up every time, making an impact for the team, which is very important.”
The review that wasn’t
There was controversy during Tuesday’s game, with India not being allowed to review a decision against Matthew Wade.
“That lbw was a strange one because we were still discussing whether the ball was going down [the leg-side], and within the 15-second [window], they showed the replay on the screen. We decided to go for the review but the umpire said they have already shown the replay on the screen,” Kohli said.
“I had a chat with Rod [Tucker, the umpire] and said, ‘What do we do in this situation?’ and he said, ‘Nothing can be done. It’s a mistake from TV’. I thought from a management perspective, a message has to be passed on that this can’t be done at the highest level because in a very important game, it can be very costly. It was a little bit of a miss from the TV guys upstairs and I am sure it won’t be repeated.”
