'We didn't do much wrong, but England were relentless' – Virat Kohli

In pursuit of 245 in Southampton, India endured a torrid start, falling to 22/3 before Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane shared a century stand to drag them back into contention. Four wickets from Moeen Ali, and commendable efforts from the remainder of the English attack, eventually saw the tourists dismissed for 184, leaving the series at 3-1 to England with a game to play.

Kohli was quick to compliment his opponents. "England did really well to give us that target, seeing how the pitch was and how the ball was spinning. They applied themselves well and got to a challenging total," he said in the post-match chat on Sunday, 2 September. He added in the press conference, "I don’t think we did much wrong, but England played better than us."

England entered the fourth day on 260/8 but only added 11 runs to their total. The Indian top order, though, couldn't capitalise. "We thought it was 50-50 last night but we didn't get the start we wanted. England were relentless throughout and put us under real pressure," said Kohli.

India, in fact, had taken the first-innings lead in the Test, thanks to a fighting century from Cheteshwar Pujara, who had crucial partnerships with the tail. However, they were left to rue what might have been.

"If I had batted longer, the lead could have been bigger," admitted Kohli. "But even after [my wicket], we thought we could get a couple of more partnerships and extend the lead if possible. Eventually Pujara had to play a blinder to get us to a lead of 30-odd.

"That's the only thing that I feel, [that we] could have extended our lead a bit more in this first innings. Apart from that I don’t see too many areas as negatives."

Despite having lost the series, Kohli said India could take pride in how they had fought. But, after narrow defeats in South Africa earlier this year, and now against England, he urged his team to introspect on how they can grab the key moments and take that final step in crossing the line as winners.

"A series is not always defined by the scorecard. 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 a hard fought series victory for England.

"I don’t think we need to prove to anyone that we have the ability. Not many teams come close to us at home. But to make the home sides earn victories against us, that’s a huge boost for us," he said.

"As a group we need to be more relentless, more expressive and more fearless. Especially at the start of a series … Those things we’ll have to talk about, how you begin well in a series and not have to fight back again and again.

"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."