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ICC CHAMPIONS TROPHY

June 8, 2017

Virat Kohli

The Oval, London

Sri Lanka won by 7 wickets

Q. Virat, what do think was the turning point? Was India 20 runs short or the 13 overs between Hardik and Ravindra Jadeja that cost 104 runs? Like what, according to you, turned the match?
VIRAT KOHLI: I think Sri Lanka played well. That factor is also present. We're playing against a team. We're not playing amongst ourselves.

Q. Does a huge outfield like this make a difference?
VIRAT KOHLI: See, again, I personally thought that we had enough on the board halfway -- you know, during the break. And I think our bowlers also bowled decently well. If batsmen come out and play like that and everyone plays well, you have to give credit to the opposition as well. We're not invincible. We are playing against other sides who are also Champion sides.

I mentioned this before. This Champions Trophy, you've got top eight teams in the world. There's no guarantee that someone can't beat the other. Exactly what I said before the game. It doesn't mean that we necessarily -- yes, when you lose games, of course, you will find negatives throughout the game.

I think batting wise we did really well. We obviously have to consolidate and then explode in the end, and that's the way we always play. We don't -- we're not a side that always plays explosive cricket throughout the 50 overs, but if a side comes out here and plays cricket with that kind of mindset and executes their shots so well, then you have to take your hat off sometimes and say very well played.

Q. Virat, two days in a row, lower ranked team won. Pakistan beat South Africa. Now Sri Lanka wins. Does this open the tournament a bit because the race is not very clear?
VIRAT KOHLI: Yes, it's become very exciting. Virtually every game is a quarterfinal now. In our group especially, all teams are on two points, and you have to win your next game to go through, which is, I think, an exciting position to be in for all teams.

And for everyone involved in the tournament and the fans as well, I think, it's a great scenario where you literally have two quarterfinals now which is going to be even more competitive cricket. So we are pretty clear about the whole situation, and, yeah, it certainly opened up the whole table for sure.

Q. Virat, you said that obviously Sri Lanka playing well was a factor. But when you have just the one spinner and he's taken four runs with four fast bowlers, does that become a bit unusual? You don't have somebody to come in and rely on and maybe do a job -- maybe just control the runs -- when there's only four fielders outside the circle in the middle overs?
VIRAT KOHLI: You always see the hindsight when you lose games of cricket. You trust your bowlers to control runs, and, you know, have good lengths and have your covers when they get out. Generally, we wanted to do in this game. We did that in the last game as well. Sometimes it comes off. Sometimes it doesn't. That doesn't mean you don't think what if we had done something different? You back a side, and you go with it. When things don't go well, obviously, you address those things.

But you expect them to execute those things. As batsmen, we can't score every time. As bowlers, you can't literally bowl consistent line and length every game that you play. So some guys will have off days. On outfields like these and pitches like these, you will have sides who will bat well.

As I said, in one-day cricket, no one is guaranteed a win, and you can play with five spinners, or you can play with five fast bowlers. You have to bowl well in any case. That's how I see it.

Q. Virat, you said that like India are not invincible, but there are always lessons you can take from defeats like these. If you can talk about like in the bracket between 25 and 40 overs, you made about 80 runs, and the lack of swing, which is, I guess, a difficult thing for bowlers in these kind of wickets. How do you address this going forward?
VIRAT KOHLI: We didn't have any swing in Birmingham either, and I think we bowled pretty well. I thought we had enough midway, but the good thing that they did was they did not lose wickets, and they kept getting a strike, which we as a team have done so many times.

Sometimes teams are going to come up and do that against you, and sometimes you literally can't do anything in the game. You try to find ways to get people out, but it doesn't happen. If you have a couple of guys with off days in between, you can't go in with eight bowling options. You literally have five or six with a part-timer. In any case, you play two spinners, or you play four seamers.

Yeah, if two guys aren't able to execute their lines, it does become difficult. Me and Kedar chipped in with our overs, and the game pulled back at that stage. But then, again, everyone came out and played positive cricket from their team.

When we got those two run-outs, we thought we can get a couple of wickets now. But, again, those guys came in and played their shots, and it came off well.

From the batting point of view, as I said, I thought we paced it well. I thought we had enough on the board. In hindsight, when you look back, maybe you think of phases that we could have accelerated, but I don't see that as a major issue. Maybe we will have to push harder now in the next few games to give us a 20-run cushion. Maybe after seeing a result like this, because we're playing on the same ground as well.

Q. Virat, only 10, 15 minutes after the game, so you need time to recollect your thoughts. But do you think that this is a situation where overhaul needs for a must win game or you go get the next one?
VIRAT KOHLI: We will have to sit down and think of how we match up against the opposition that we're playing against. As I said, all options are open. We had certain things in mind which came off well once and didn't come off well today.

So, yeah, I mean, there will be a lot of things discussed, what went wrong and what combinations we can come out with in the next game. If you want to bring in a bit more balance into the bowling attack by changing it up a little bit, that will be up for discussion as well. So there are all kinds of possibilities when you have a big squad and you can choose players well -- you know, quality players as well. So definitely, we'll have discussions on that.

Q. Virat, two questions. How do you feel at this stage, now that you're again back against the wall and you're fighting, do-or-die match? And number two, did you consider Yuvraj Singh as a bowling option at any stage?
VIRAT KOHLI: See, if the team is four or five down and you have to get few overs out of the way from the part-timer, then Yuvi can be used, but at that stage, I did not think -- because Jadeja was also going for runs, and it was difficult to bowl with the breeze going that side to the shorter boundary. If Jadeja is finding it difficult, then obviously Yuvi would have found it a bit more difficult as well.

I thought -- I spoke to MS as well, and we both thought that Kedar was a better bet at that time. Then because in England, generally, if you bowl little seamers, then you can trouble the batsman. So I thought why not try a few overs there as well? So I think we covered up pretty well. Wicket is a bit more dry than, which obviously comes into contention and I don't.

From that point of view, I think it was depending on the kind of situation we had in the game and what was going on on the pitch. The spinners are finding it difficult when we were bowling anyway. So I don't think that that would have been a wise decision at that stage.

Well, as I said, it's pretty clear. It's like a quarterfinal. It's against a very high quality side, and we have to go out there and play good cricket. If we had won this game, we still would have gone with the same mindset of winning the tournament as well.

So there's no room for complacency in a tournament like this, and we as a team certainly don't feel that, even if we had four points on the board right now, we still would have gone out there to try to beat South Africa, and that's exactly the mindset we are going to take into the next game.

Q. Virat, when as a captain you yourself feel that you had enough runs in the board and the team chases it down like that especially, what do you tell the bowling attack? Is it possible to just forget it and move on? Because also, like most of your bowlers back home are dependent a lot on late swing as well, like with the old ball, which you're not getting here. So what do you tell the bowling attack after a defeat like that?
VIRAT KOHLI: Well, nothing. It's like a batting collapse. When you collapse as a batting unit, you don't sit down and think of your life's over. You just move on and say it's a bad day. Forget about it. That's what.

In a Test match, you have a lot to think about because the game goes on for five days. But I think in shorter format cricket, you have to forget it and move on because you're playing in three days time again, and we have to be fresh as a team. We have to get back into that same mindset and come out and try to do the same things again.

If a team -- as I said, if a team plays well, you have to take your hat off. People's perception -- we can't sit here and think of what people are perceiving us to be or what people had expected of us as a team. We just wanted to play good cricket. If that's not fulfilled for us, it does not change the situation of the team. We still go in with the same mindset in the next game as well.

We try to win every game that we play. That's why you play international cricket.

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