Not demoralised by defeat: Kohli

India captain Virat Kohli stressed that the team “will not be demoralised” by the innings defeat in the third Test at Headingley.

“We like to be in this situation where people start coming at us with doubts and really start questioning the ability of this team, that is the situation we love best,” Kohli said during a virtual media interaction on Saturday.

“I can guarantee you that we will not be demoralised by this loss. Guys in the change-room are hurt and when they’re hurt, they know that they badly want to correct the things that didn’t go well in this game. That is how we are going to play the next two Test matches.”

While he said in the post-match presentation that he remains comfortable with the four-pacer template, Kohli added that the pacers will definitely be rotated in the remaining two matches.

“That’s a very logical and sensible thing to do. You don’t want to push individuals to a place where they break. That conversation is very important… we will have that conversation with individuals and see who is placed where and who needs a game off. You can’t expect with such short turnarounds like this for guys to play four Tests in a row,” he said.

Kohli said the defeat at Leeds was an “aberration”.

“This game has been kind of an aberration in how we have gone in this series. First two games, we put ourselves in positions where we won one game and had the opportunity to win the other as well.”