Kohli praises bowlers after second Test victory against England

However, England openers Alastair Cook and Haseeb Hameed batted beautifully against the new ball and later the spinners on Day 4 afternoon.

“I was pretty confident that I was striking the ball well, so I can take on the bowlers before they can put pressure on us and we can put runs on the board”. Ashwin has also achieved 400 runs this year. Chasing 400 runs on day four and five is always hard. “It’s always hard, not many teams have done it”.

“I’ll think we’ll see a lot more of him in an England shirt whether he plays in Mohali or not”.

Obviously, the morning session on Day 5 will a massive phase in the game because the pitch would be rolled and it would be the best time for the batsmen before the pitch deteriorates and Indian spinners make life hell for them.

Cook who scored his 30th ton on the fifth day of the first Test at Rajkot, could not quite repeat his performance as England lost his wicket at a key juncture of the test match.

India bowled England out shortly after lunch on the final day as the tourists challenge faded.

“Obviously, when we are playing in India we expect the ball to keep low”. So the edges fly off and you are not in position. “As we saw, cracks are opening up”.

“So we made a very clear policy”.

Cook said: “To get through like he did was extraordinary”.

“We know the ability that they have but we are not thinking about the past”. We will definitely have to come hard at them. But we are prepared for it.

Broad sustained a foot injury and would be assessed after the ongoing test but there was no let up in hostility from the lanky paceman who troubled the Indian batsmen with his probing cutters. The 28-year-old has been in splendid form this calendar year, having scored over 500 runs in each format of the game at the global level. I’m really happy for him.

“Was nice to get more than one wickets here”. How much damage you can actually do to it, we’ll know in the next 24 hours, 48 hours.

“We got two wickets. ultimately we achieved what we wanted”. On Day Five, Ashwin was at it once again and got the wicket of Ben Duckett to provide India an early start. Possibly day five won’t be easy to bat on. Cracks are opening up and it will be hard.

The visitors need to scale a mountain of runs or bat out three sessions for a draw.

In an interview with NDTV, Former cricketer Sunil Gavaskar said Cook’s wicket was the turning point for India, as the captain’s dismissal broke the spirit of the visiting team. The bowlers will call for the DRS and even when we are batting, we have a clear plan. It was high-class defensive batting from two batsmen with the technique to pull off such a hard skill but Kohli felt that, in bowler-friendly conditions, not having the “intent” to score was not the way to go.

“What’s giving me belief is over 10 days of cricket we have competed very well in India in their conditions”.