The previous time India suffered as dramatic a collapse as in Pune, they bounced back to script a 19-game unbeaten streak in Tests thereafter.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

It was in Galle in 2015 that Virat Kohli and his batting unit last had a breakdown of the sort in Pune, getting bundled out for 112 while chasing 176 for victory against Sri Lanka. India went 1-0 down in the three-match series, but stepped up to clinch the series 2-1 and took off for bigger achievements from there.

A similar situation presents itself for the Indian team here. They were shot out cheaply twice by Australia's spin bullets in Pune to go down in the opening game of the series. The defeat was as crushing as the Galle one, and has taught India similar lessons in their quest to script another turnaround.

"It was an opportunity to understand what are the things we needed to work on," India captain Virat Kohli said on Friday. "We are all professional cricketers but sometimes when you are winning a lot of games, you don't tend to focus on the points that need to be improved, because someone or the other is stepping up.

"When the whole team does not execute the things that you want to, you understand a lot more things that you need to work on as a team. We got to know a lot of things that we still need to keep working on to be the top side in the world. We cannot take anything for granted at any stage during a Test match and it's something that we look at as an opportunity to learn rather than thinking of it as a setback. These things also are very important in a cricket journey," he added.

Kohli wants to look at the Pune loss as a wake-up call to their dream Test run. And now that they're up, they don't want to go back to the same zone. The zone of batsmen throwing their wickets away and surrendering meekly to Steve O'Keefe and Nathan Lyon, the zone of fielders dropping Australia captain Steve Smith as many as five times in an innings, the zone of not putting up any resistance as a team.

Kohli doesn't mind going down, but not going down that way.

"You want to forget if a result does not go your way," he said, before adding: "But it is important that the loss should hurt you and you learn from that. It's important to accept that we lost due to our lack of intent and the opposition team playing better cricket than us. You should not take this on ego. If you don't accept, then it will pile on. We know that we did not play good cricket and Australia played well. But it doesn't mean that it will happen in every Test."

Not with this Indian team anyway, which has the experience of turning setbacks into success stories. The India skipper is confident that the hosts will turn a new chapter in that from the second Test itself, much like they did after Galle.

"I think we have more experience and more belief in the team then we had back then," Kohli said. "Everyone is taking this as a massive challenge and everyone is raring to turn things around in the series and play the kind of cricket we all know that we can play."

Kohli didn't reveal how different the team that walks out in Bengaluru will be from Pune, but he did promise one major difference.

"I assure you that you will not see a repeat of that (Pune) kind of performance," he said.

Last game was a disappointment in the way we played. It wasn't more of the result, we have lost before but we have lost fighting hard. When you don't have enough intent during the game and you lose the game, that's when it hurts. I think that's all that we made of it. The comments or the headlines don't matter to us, they never have. We don't base our cricket on that stuffVirat Kohli, India captain

PANDYA NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION

All-rounder Hardik Pandya, who was released by the Indian team management to play the Vijay Hazare Trophy but joined the team in Bengaluru ahead of the second Test, has suffered another shoulder injury. India captain Virat Kohli revealed that the Baroda lad won't be available for selection for the second Test against the Aussies. "Hardik Pandya is not available for selection. He has a niggle in his shoulder and he is not fit. Rest of them are," Kohli said. Incidentally, Pandya had also picked up a shoulder injury while training ahead of the third Test against England, which had ruled him out of the rest of the series.