‘Learning phase over, time to start dominating’ – Kohli

Bat once, bat big, bowl the opposition out twice, and achieve all of this inside four days. In the first innings, the fast bowlers take eight out of ten wickets. In the second, the spinners take eight out of ten. India were expected to win, and keep winning, when they arrived in the West Indies, but they may have not expected to start the series with a win that ticked off every box to make up the perfect Test-match template.

Virat Kohli, India’s captain, couldn’t have been more pleased with the manner in which his team went 1-0 up in the four-Test series. He said India’s players had reached a stage where they could no longer be content with learning from every performance, but needed to start dominating Test matches regularly.

“If you look at it logically, that’s probably the perfect finish, which every team looks for,” he said. “The seamers usually dominate the first innings when you play away from home. The wicket tires out on day four and five. That’s when the spinners come into play. In the first innings, spinners are taking couple of the breakthrough wickets. In the second innings, fast bowlers are doing this for you and then the spinners will open it up again.

“I think it was wonderful partnership bowling by all our bowlers in the two innings. And the batsmen as well. We have spoken about one thing, that we have the skill and ability to declare innings more often than not rather than struggling to get to 350 with our lower order. So that’s the kind of mindset we need to play with.

“You know when you start off with five batsmen, obviously you need to take more responsibility. I think they are all good enough to do that. As I’ve said before, we are not at a stage now where we need to come and improve. We should be ready enough in international cricket to start dominating Test matches and win those crucial situations and sessions. That’s how we become a better team.

“If you think we are going to keep learning every series, learning every game, we will never get that hunger and that mindset to win games from difficult situations. We need to challenge ourselves a little bit, which this team has been willing to do and which is a wonderful sign. The way we finished the Test, it all panned out pretty nicely.”

R Ashwin was the standout Indian bowler on the fourth day, finishing with figures of 7 for 83 as West Indies’ second innings folded half an hour after tea. While Kohli hailed Ashwin’s bowling, he said Amit Mishra had also played an important role at the other end

“It was a very good …

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