India skipper Virat Kohli credits self-belief for turning things around in South Africa

Kolkata: India skipper Virat Kohli on Saturday said the positive mindset of the cricketers and “belief” in their own abilities helped the team get back to winning ways in the third and final Test against South Africa after suffering heavy defeats in the first two matches. “It was hard after the first two Test matches but the mindset was that we need to win at any cost. So even after two tough Test matches it is the belief that got us back when no one believed in us,” said Kohli, who was present at the unveiling of journalist Boria Majumdar’s book ‘Eleven Gods and a Billion Indians’, here. [caption id=“attachment_4422185” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Virat Kohli celebrates his century during the sixth ODI against South Africa in Centurion on 16 February, 2018. AFP[/caption] “The coach, the management… we believed in ourselves and we were able to turn the things around. We did not worry about anything. We focused on only one thing that we are good enough and we can win, and that’s all that was required.” When asked about his decision to bat first in the the third Test against the Proteas in Johannesburg that faced criticism by many of the cricketing experts, Kohli said he and his players were confident of winning as they did everything right throughout the match. “Obviously it was difficult because we thought the wicket is going to play very differently and it’s gonna be difficult from early on. But I felt played that Test match doing all the right things and our intention was right throughout. We were not dishonest to the game, we were not scared any stage and played the right way and we knew that the game cannot do injustice to us,” Kohli said. “As a team we kept looking at things from the other perspective. There were opposition from all over regarding our decision to bat first but the team believed that it was the right decision for us,” he noted. The prolific right hand batsman also claimed that it is important to be able to think out of the box to be successful under difficult condition in modern day cricket and said he and his players did the same to become a successful Test side overseas. “The mindset matters when you are going to face something difficult. At that point the team was in transition and they ended up becoming a great team overseas as well, was purely because all the payers in the team wanted to achieve the the same goal…The most important thing is you when you go to conditions that are not your own, you need to have their ability to look at things in a very different way,” Kohli said. “In cricket there is no one way of doing something. There is always your way and if you believe in your way then you can make things happen,” he added. India won the third Test match against South Africa by 63 runs finishing the three-Test series 1-2 and went on to win the ODI and T20I series thereafter.