Indian skipper Virat Kohli termed Edgbaston’s boundaries as “bizarre” and “crazy”. Kohli on Sunday went on to point fingers at dimensions of the ground which he believed helped English openers in beginning, after a defeat to the hosts England.
Though Kohli didn’t directly refer to the short 59-meter boundary as a reason for India’s 31 run defeat to England but made no efforts to hide his displeasure on the same.
England opener Jonny Bairstow particularly took advantage of short 59-meter boundary to tackle Indian wrist spinners Chahal and Kuldeep. Bairstow who hit his first World Cup hundred smashed chunk of runs to Chahal towards the shorter boundary.
Bairstow (111) made a blistering 160-run stand with Roy (66), which always kept the hosts ahead in the crucial game.
“It’s a coincidence that it (the short boundary) just falls under the limitations of the shortest boundary you can have in the tournament,” Kohli told the host broadcaster in the post-match presentation. “So quite bizarre on a flat pitch, it’s the first time we’ve experienced that so it’s crazy that things fall in place like that randomly.”
Kuldeep and Chahal had troubles dealing with the extremely shorter side of the boundary. Chahal went on conceding 88 in his limited 10-overs spell – the most by an Indian spinner in an ODI. Kuldeep too went for plenty of runs in his first five overs, before making a good comeback in end to finish his quota of ten overs by conceding 72/1.
Kohli believed Chahal and Kuldeep could have been smarter with their lines, but the shorter boundaries made their job a tough one.
“If batsmen are able to reverse sweep you for a six on a 59-meter boundary then there is not much you can do as a spinner. There is no sort of room to think whether you are going to get out or not and one side was about 82 (meters) or something like that. Yeah, look, they had to be smart with the with lines they bowled, but with one short boundary it was very difficult to contain runs.”
Interestingly, India expressed its take on shorter boundaries at the start of the game. Kohli along with coaching staff was seen having a word with head groundsman of Edgbaston.
The size of the boundary was, however, wasn’t decided by ECB, since the World Cup is an ICC tournament, the playing conditions come under the jurisdiction of ICC.
The Indian skipper also admitted that his side was not clinical with the bat while chasing 338 on board. “...we weren’t clinical with the bat I suppose, because the wicket was flat. We should have accelerated and gotten closer, but they (England) bowled superbly,” Kohli said.
“If we were clinical with the bat, if the dismissals didn’t happen at that time, the result could have been different. We had a decent chance when they (Pant and Pandya) were in there to strike a few and get closer to the target and trigger panic in their (England) dressing room. We kept losing wickets and that doesn’t help in a big chase,” he added.
(With Inputs from HT)
