Credit to England for applying in the second innings: Virat Kohli

At the end of the first Test, the result reads a draw but it means a lot more than a draw to the Englishmen who had come into the series having lost a Test to Bangladesh and exposed their spin problems. But the way they tackled spin in this particular game and especially Ravichandran Ashwin will give them a lot of confidence going ahead in the series.

In the end, for India, it was their skipper Virat Kohli who stood there till the very end to see them through. “Good opportunity to find out new things about your game,” he said, “That is what I spoke to Jadeja as well. It’s a situation, can’t get better than that to find another aspect of your game. Especially in Test cricket, we have been a positive side and played for a result. To play against the momentum, it requires skill. It is very important to convince yourself that you can get through those tough periods. You trust your defence and trust that you can negotiate anything that is thrown at you.”

“We could have been better on day one and day two. We dropped five catches and the opposition can take the game away from you. England is a side that we are not taking for granted. Sometimes these things happen and good to not give away a result at the start of the series.”

Virat Kohli further emphasised on the point adding, “They [spinners] bowled on the first two days, where the wicket was really good to bat on. Not taking anything away from the England bowlers, but with 540 on the board, it’s a different ball game. We need to correct the areas before going to Vizag. There are a lot of positives that we can take. Anything happens in Test cricket. We have the batting line up to score 500 and if we had scored, the opposition would have felt the pressure. Credit to England for applying in the second innings as well and as I said we are not taking them for granted.” He said.

The English skipper was the happier guy at the post-match presentation, Alastair Cook said: “Really tough five days. We played some good cricket. It was a good toss to win, but you still got to score. In India, if you get 530, you usually win. It was a really good cricket wicket. Really proud of the lads for not allowing India to score quickly. To keep them to 480, we bowled really well. The way Hass (Hameed) played in the second innings was brilliant. You are always in the game.”

“We wanted to bat them out of the game. There were only two chances, one was us winning and the other was drawing the game, and that can make you do funny things. In the end, they held on. It was really flat for the first three days and turned more and more, but people still managed to score runs. It turned out of the rough for both left and right-handers.” He added.

Cook also praised the debutant Haseeb Hameed for his batting and said, “Rajkot was a great Test match. It’s quite a case [referring to his love affair with India]. Hopefully, I can add to that. Brilliant knock from Hameed. I thought the way he played, it was absolutely brilliant. You don’t want to put too much pressure on him. I thought all our spinners bowled really well. Adil stepped up to another level. This is a game where all three of them can be proud of.”

English all-rounder Moeen Ali was awarded the man of the match award for his performance and he said: “Very good pitch. Obviously, we were three down at lunch, to get stuck in, I really enjoyed batting with Rooty. We feel like we prepared really well and it was good finally to get out and play a game. In international cricket, you need to vary your pace, something that I have developed in recent times. I think they bowled very, very well. Ansari didn’t go for many runs and Rash (Rashid) picked up the wickets. The boys are confident after this game. I thought we played spin very well throughout the match, especially today. We had four hundreds which was very encouraging and a brilliant debut from Hassy (Haseeb Hameed).”