Virat Kohli's message to Indian batsmen, T20 league called off and more - Cricket News Today, 16 November 2018
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The Indian team has left for their tour to Australia while Bangladesh came back from behind to square the series 1-1 against Zimbabwe. Root’s century helped England to extend their lead and now, is in a good position in the second Test at Pallekele. The Pakistan-New Zealand Test series also kicked off today and the Kiwis find themselves in some early trouble. India ‘A’ also began their three-match unofficial Test series and are well placed at 340/5 (with Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari and Parthiv Patel hitting half-centuries).
Here are a few other things that created headlines in the cricketing world today.
#1 Virat Kohli wants batsmen to step up in Australia
On the eve of India’s departure to Australia, most of the questions were on India’s batting. Even skipper Virat Kohli stressed that it’s time for batsmen to take responsibility. India have been vulnerable with the bat in the recent past and that showed when the toured South Africa in January and England in August-September this year. The batsmen have time and again failed to deliver and the team has been found wanting more often than not.
“Our focus will be more on how batsmen will bat together on this tour. The bowlers are in a great space. After a long time, we have a bowling attack where we feel that we can pick up twenty wickets every time,” Kohli said in the pre-departure press conference.
The Indian skipper called for better decision making in pressure situations and also wants the team to be a lot more consistent. “When you win Test matches, you see that kind of performances but it is about remembering them. What we did right, why we won a Test match? It's not about celebrating a victory and forgetting it but it's about learning from victories as well so that it can be repeated. And that's consistency. And we need to be more consistent as a team,” Kohli said.