India possess the upper hand in Bangalore Test, says Virat Kohli – Cricket News Update
India’s vice-captain, Virat Kohli, is optimistic about his team’s chances of chasing down a competitive total set by New Zealand in the second of the two-match Test series at Bangalore and feels that the pitch is heavily in favour
of the batsmen.
Having lost the initial fixture by a massive margin of an innings and 115 runs, New Zealand have fought well in the second encounter, taking a minor lead of 12 runs in the first innings of the match.
The Kiwi batsmen however, failed to repeat their first innings performance and were dismissed for 248 runs in their second turn, giving a target of 261 runs to the home team. Any total of above 200 is difficult to chase in the fourth
innings of a match on a wearying pitch, but India have a very strong batting line-up, which is much more experienced as compared to the Kiwis’.
Kohli, who scored a brilliant hundred in the match, believes that the fast bowlers get a little help from the pitch early in the morning but it gets extremely flat afterwards. The right-handed batsman urged his top-order batsmen to
play responsibly and avoid rash strokes.
"The wicket doesn't have that much," he said. "Their seam bowlers bowled well in the morning. I think the morning freshness of the wicket that stays for about an hour is the only factor, and they used that well. Apart from that, if
we apply ourselves, I think we'll be in a good position."
The match appears to be balanced and any team can clinch victory in the last two days of the Bangalore Test. The 23-year-old cricket however, believes that his side are the clear favourites to whitewash New Zealand.
"We'd like to think so (that the match is tilted towards India). The morning session was really nice for them. But now that we look back after taking nine wickets, it played in our favour, because there are still two more days to
go," the aggressive batsman added.
The Test series will be followed by two T20 Internationals between the two sides.
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