"Not brave enough" – Kohli brutally honest in assessment of India's loss
India were inflicted yet another demoralising defeat in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, this time at the hands of New Zealand who won by eight wickets and with more than five overs to spare.
Both teams came into this game having lost their respective Super 12 opener to Pakistan and were in need of a win.
Put in to bat first, India were restricted to a modest total of 110/7 by New Zealand bowlers who were on top of their game from ball one. The pacers started brilliantly, removing the openers inside the Powerplay before the spinners stifled the batters, which resulted in the important wickets of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli inside the first 10 overs.
The rest of the Indian line-up failed to provide any sort of impetus, with only Jadeja striking at over 130.
Speaking in the post-match presentation, India captain Virat Kohli was brutally honest in his assessment of India's batting innings.
"Quite bizarre. To be very honest and brutal upfront, I don't think we were brave enough with bat or ball," said Kohli. "Obviously, with the ball we did not have much to play with, but we were just not brave enough in our body language when we entered the field.
"New Zealand had better intensity and body language and created pressure on us from the first over and continued that through the innings. Every time we felt like we wanted to take a chance, we lost a wicket."
Quizzed about the expectations of the fans, Kohli said, "When you play for the Indian cricket team you have a lot of expectations - not only from fans, but players themselves. Wherever, we play, we are watched - people come to the stadiums to support us. So there's always going to be more pressure with our games and we've embraced it over the years.
"Everyone who plays for India has to embrace it and learn how to cope with it. And when you cope together as a team you overcome it and we haven't done it these two games and that's why we haven't won."
New Zealand made easy work of the chase but were troubled by Jasprit Bumrah's pinpoint accuracy. He picked up both the wickets that fell in the New Zealand innings, going for just 19 runs in his four overs.
Despite the best efforts from the bowlers, the target set by the batters was not enough as New Zealand romped home with 33 balls to spare.
Jasprit Bumrah too was asked about India's approach while batting in the post-match press conference.
“I think as a batting unit what we were trying to do is that we know in the second innings dew does play a massive factor, so the batters tried to give us some cushion. In doing that process I think we played a lot of attacking shots and attacking options that didn’t come off today," said Bumrah.
“I think that was the approach as a batting unit that was going on, because in the second innings batting does get easier, so we wanted to give some cushion to the bowlers.
“We realised that once you lose the toss the wicket changes in the second innings. So in that I think we went attacking a little early and the longer boundaries actually came into play. They used the slower balls well, they used the wicket to their advantage, and they made it difficult for our batters to play the big shots. I think that’s a summary of what happened today, and that’s for everyone to see.”