On the third day, as soon as Stokes was dismissed by Jayant Yadav, Kohli made an ‘I am quiet’ gesture which said it all.
When Jonny Bairstow was asked about it, his answer suggested that they seemed to have now accepted that Virat Kohli comes with a package.
“It’s up to him (Kohli), isn’t it. He’s obviously quite a vocal character. But that’s Virat. He gets a bit wound up.
We’ll leave him to it. If he wants to do that, let him do that. And we’ll go about our business as we have over a period of time. But yes. If he wants to do that and let the crowd do that, then let him,” Bairstow’s answer revealed that they won’t like to go further with it even though it wasn’t exactly amusing.
Bairstow also dismissed the fact that England batsmen were trying some sledging tactics by standing straight when spinners were bowling.
“No sledging. I don’t think there’s anything in that to be honest with you. The standing straight is standing straight. You can stand anywhere you want. I don’t think there’s a set thing to stand there at the moment. It is not a set play to try to unsettle anyone or anything like that. It’s just that we fancy standing a bit straight.
“You’ve got Jadeja at one end, who gets through his overs in about four seconds (in jest) and you have guys at the other end with a slightly longer run-up. So to try and settle into a rhythm as a batter can be a little tricky when you’ve got two spinners at different ends going at 4 and 7 second an over!” Bairstow did agree that they have been outplayed today.
“I think they have won today. I think up until this morning, it was evenly poised, to be honest with you. If this morning, we’d gone bang bang for two wickets, it would have been a great start to the day. But unfortunately that was not the case. They have played well this morning, to give them credit. So yeah, they played nicely today and put us in a tough position.
Sourced from agencies, Featured image courtesy: indianexpress.com
