India vs England: Virat Kohli Needs to Bring The Best Out of His Players, Says Sourav Ganguly

Skipper Virat Kohli has insisted that England deserved to win the series. He, however, added that the scoreline shouldn’t convince people that India can’t play overseas.

Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly believes more than postmortem, Virat Kohli needs to back his players and give them the confidence to rise to the challenge and turn into match-winners. India lost the fifth and final Test by 118 runs at The Oval on Tuesday,  thus losing the series 1-4.

“More than postmortem, it is important to recognize talent here. It is important for every team to move forward. I believe that the kind of batting that the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara, Rahane and Rahul have done in this series, they are 10 times better cricketers. Kohli needs to bring the best out of his players. It is a big responsibility of a captain to take the players along as you move ahead,” Ganguly told India TV.

“If the captain puts his arms around a player’s shoulder and says that he wants the player to win him games, the performance will automatically improve. That atmosphere needs to be there. Identification of talent is very important,” he added.

India, despite the loss in the series, have been able to maintain their number one Test rankings. They, however, suffered a loss of 10 rating points. England, on the other hand, have moved to the fourth spot in the ICC Team Rankings.

Meanwhile, skipper Kohli insisted that England deserved to win the series. He, however, added that the scoreline shouldn’t convince people that India can’t play overseas.

“They deserved to win because they played better than us, that is how we look at this series, we do not look at this series as something that makes us think we can’t play in overseas conditions. Of course we can play, but can we capitalise on the important moments better than the opposition? At the moment, no, we haven’t done that, but in future, we want to do that, and that is the only way we win series,” the 29-year-old said in the post-match press conference on Tuesday.

Also Read | We Were Not Outplayed: Virat Kohli

“Our aim is to win series, not to win the odd Test match and be happy about it, we are definitely not happy about the way the series has gone, but the way we played cricket is something that, not me, no one in the change room, no one doubts even one per cent, because we played with the right attitude and the will to win every game that we played,” he added.