Will not take England for granted: Virat Kohli

A lot of talk during the post-mortem of the drawn Rajkot Test centered around England landing the first punch in the series, particularly with their spinners – Adil Rashid, Moeen Ali and Zafar Ansari – outbowling India’s own spin troika. The Indian captain expects to make some surprise inclusions for the second Test at Visakhapatnam starting on Thursday.

Having come close to taking a 1-0 lead in the five-match series, England captain Alastair Cook expressed his disappointment with the the draw in the opening Test but defended his decision of declaring only after lunch on day five. A 19-year-old outscored me.

It’s not been as quite as humid as Bangladesh, but it’s been a tough Test match”, he said after the final day, “We scored four hundreds, the spinners bowled well, seamers were outstanding on a slow wicket and we got into a position to try to force a result. Despite failing with the bowl Ashwin made a vital contribution with his batting in a match saving innings.

But the identity of India’s third spinner – if indeed there is to be one – is more intriguing.

India do have a situation on their hands, especially with Amit Mishra.

Kohli was careful to give little away. “Before that, some people obviously were sceptical about our side knowing how to draw games”, Kohli said.

“He’s a find for the game”. It took a 47-run stand between Ashwin and Virat Kohli to bail their side out of trouble. On the other hand, Indian opener KL Rahul is all set to make a comeback in the team and Gautam Gambhir might be replaced and this was perhaps the last of him we saw in the global stage, but you never know.

“We had it pretty clear in our heads that KL is our number one choice along with M Vijay. We pulled him out of the Ranji Trophy fixture as he was fit and hence there was no question of including him on the team”, Kohli said.

After bowling India out 49 runs short of their first innings total of 537, Cook and Hameed deflated the Indian attack to put up 180 runs for the first wicket, a record for England in India.

Kohli said he expected a much better fielding effort from his side for the next match after several dropped catches helped England reach a commanding position. In Test cricket if you don’t take your chances then the game is very hard to pull back. “I think that was the main difference at the Rajkot Test rather than skill or pitch or toss”, he said on the eve of the second Test.