India captain Virat Kohli was one of the star performers as his team scripted a historic Test win against South Africa in Johannesburg. Kohli contributed to India’s win with two crucial knocks (54, 41) on an extremely difficult batting surface. The 29-year-old was applauded for his technique and character as dealt skillfully with the high-quality South African pacer attack. However, Kohli’s batting wasn’t the only facet of his game that grabbed eyeballs. His celebratory jump, especially after AB de Villiers’ dismissal in the second innings, impressed some fans more than his classy cover drives.
All those Rahane runs saving India. And he wasn’t even picked for the 1st two tests. This should be Kohli’s lesson, once he lands on the ground after that celebratory jump.
Kohli described Saturday’s 63-run win at the Wanderers as “a massive milestone” for Indian cricket.
“This is one of our sweetest wins,” he said. “This day will be remembered for a long time for us as a team.”
Kohli said India’s performance on a pitch designed to help South Africa’s fast bowlers showed they could win in any conditions.
“We already had the belief but now we have the result to back that as well.”
He said belief in their own ability was crucial.
“If we think about winning Test matches, yes, we will lose some but we will end up winning a lot as well.”
Kohli added Saturday’s win, achieved on the fourth afternoon after South Africa lost their last nine wickets for 53 runs, ranked as one of the finest he had been involved in as a player.
He compared it to a win under Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy against England at Lord’s in 2014.
“Lord’s was very special because we were playing on a similar sort of pitch,” he said.
The win entrenched India as the world’s number one Test team. If South Africa had completed a 3-0 series sweep they would have drawn level on points with Kohli’s men.
“South Africa played better than us in the first two games so they deserved to win (the series) but we deserved to win this game. But at many moments in the first two games we put them under pressure,” added Kohli.
“We are the number one team in the world and we certainly played like that,” he said.