Upul Tharanga survived a scare after captain Virat Kohli dropped a straightforward catch at second slip off Mohammed Shami. (Source: Reuters)
Team India clinched the three-match Test series against Sri Lanka after a thumping win at Colombo on Sunday. With this victory, India registered their eighth consecutive series win while skipper Kohli secured his second series win in Sri Lanka. However, some of the areas of concern still remain and Kohli touched upon one of them, slip catching.
Stating that it is certainly an area that India is looking at Kohli said, “Yeah, that is certainly an area that we want to keep improving in. I would say that on a pitch like that where it is getting slower, sometimes you end up standing ahead because you want to pick up catches from the front. And then when one big shot is played and the ball is bowled quick, then you suddenly look like you are not in position. It is a very tricky thing to figure out. Maybe we will have to figure out a certain distance that we just stay in, no matter if the ball falls in front of us or something like that.”
On the issue of specialist fielders taking those spots, Kohli admitted that specialists are always nice. “KL [Rahul] and Pujara are our close-in specialists. Pujara does gully for spinners as well but then he takes on short-leg and KL hasn’t done as much of that practice as Pujara does. So it becomes tricky. I try to chip in but when I drop catches, it looks bad. We will have to figure out who stands in those positions consistently and keep those guys there for longer periods. I think that is the solution going forward.”
