Ever since Team India lost the first Test against England at home, the talks have been going around whether India should keep Virat Kohli as Test captain after the four successive defeat or not. However, former England captain Kevin Pietersen backed Kohli and said that the team has lost with the presence of Ajinkya Rahane as well.

“I absolutely don’t expect things to change, but it is impossible to avoid the continuing debate around the Indian Test match captaincy. Virat Kohli has now lost four consecutive Test matches as skipper, and has Ajinkya Rahane, who just led India to a famous series win in Australia, in his side,” Pietersen wrote in his blog for Betway.
Notably, under Kohli, India had lost their two Tests in New Zealand early last year before they once again lost to Australia in the first Test in Adelaide in December 2020 and then faced the same result in their first Test against England in Chennai as well.
On the other hand, Ajinkya Rahane successfully led the team to a historic 2-1 win in Australia as they bounced back well from their defeat in Adelaide. However, he is yet to lose a Test match as a captain as well.
“On social media, every radio station, every television channel and every news channel, there are very deep discussions around what should happen. Captaining your country is very difficult and unfortunately this is the nature of the beast. It’s one more distraction that Kohli doesn’t need but he is, of course, capable of leading his side to a victory in the second Test to quieten things down a bit,” he again shared.
Meanwhile, after the huge loss, India captain Virat Kohli said that lack of intensity and poor body language was one of the main reasons for their defeat. However, with this win, England have taken a lead of 1-0 in the four-match test series.
“Our body language and intensity was not up to the mark, second innings we were much better. We were better in the second half of the first innings with the bat, not the first four batters,” said Virat Kohli at the post-match presentation ceremony. “We have to understand the things that we have done decently in this game and the things that we haven’t and as a side we are always looking to improve. England were far more professional and consistent throughout the Test match than we were.”
Batting first, England have shared a fair share of successes as they posted a huge total of 578 in the first innings, courtesy captain Joe Root’s stunning knock of 218. Dominic Sibley and Ben Stokes have also contributed 87 and 82 runs respectively. In reply, India managed 337. However, in their second innings, Indian bowlers bowled England out for a below-par score of 178 on the back of the veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin’s six-wicket haul for 61 runs. Meanwhile, chasing 420, India could manage 192 in 58.1 overs in the second session of the fifth and final day and lost at the end as well.
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