Virat Kohli’s furrowed brows told the tale. The India skipper’s body language could not mask the pain of defeat.

As skipper of the World No. 1 Test team he takes pride in his side’s performances overseas. India, though, was swept aside by New Zealand at the Basin Reserve.

Blunt and direct

Kohli was blunt and direct, he did not make excuses.

Kohli said the team had not been competitive enough. He recalled how the team had fought all the way even in matches it had lost.

“But I think we let ourselves down massively with the bat in the first innings. If we had got 230 or 240 we would have given our bowlers a chance,” he said. “You could say the toss played a big role, but that’s an uncontrollable, so you can’t focus on that.”

Kohli said India had not been at its best in this Test. “Only if we accept this, we will come out in the next game with a much better mind-set and much more competitive.”

The captain felt shot-selection was very important in these conditions. Kohli said the New Zealand bowlers got into the minds of the batsmen — bowling with accuracy, fielders around the bat.

“You have to hit past those fielders and therein lies the risk. This pitch was slow and on the drier side. So we weren’t able to get our shots away,” he said.

Deceptive scores

Given his potential, Kohli was willing to give Prithvi Shaw more time.

About himself, Kohli said, “I am batting really well. Sometimes the scores do not reflect how you are batting and that can happen when you don’t execute what you can well.”

Kohli said India needed to block all the noise from outside [criticism] and approach the Christchurch Test with a clear mind-set. And the batsmen had to take responsibility. It was more a mental thing than technical, he said.