Not turn but shot selection let us down, says Kohli

As South Africa spinners wrecked havoc with the Indian batting line-up in their second innings of the first cricket Test here, captain Virat Kohli today said it was "errors in shot selection" rather than turn, which led to their collapse.
If Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja turned on the heat against the formidable South African batting, then visiting spinners Imran Tahir, Simon Harmer and Dean Elgar also proved effective on the I S Bindra wicket.
"Yes. I think that was the case. I can comment on our batting. We made errors rather than fear of spin. We made shot judgement errors. We know that it has been committed, it will be reflected upon and corrected, next time we come out to play," Kohli, who won his first home game as captain, told reporters here.

Kohli also agreed that lack of domestic cricket could have led the players to lose touch with spin bowling.
"Could be. We have played a lot of cricket away from home and we have not played a lot of cricket on turning wickets. And as you rightly said, we haven't played a lot of domestic cricket. That could be the case," he said when asked about the players' lack of ability to tackle spin.
"Obviously there could be a reason that, it is always said that Indians are very good players of spin, Asians are very good players of spin. That might pressurise a few guys saying that we have to play spin well. And if that doesn't happen once or twice, it starts building up. It could be anything. The individuals need to be spoken to individually.

"At times we have played spin well. In the second innings is when we have not played spin well, as far as I have experienced. In the first innings we have played spin relatively well. I think it's a mindset thing where some sort of fear creeps in and you're not able to make the right decisions. Doesn't matter if its spin or pace. More often than not, it has happened against spin. I think that is an area we can improve on," he added.

Kohli spoke about Indian batsmen faltering against spin in the sub-continent.
"See we have played spin relatively badly in the past. Once it happened in Galle. I think the problem has been that we lost wickets too quickly. If we get a stand and then lose one, we've lost two three... So that needs to improve. Apart from that everyone plays spin well. It's just a mindset thing.

"You can think of five different things while playing a stroke, thinking that the ball might go there. You need to think of only one thing. If you want to hit a ball somewhere, you need to think about only that. That sort of confidence is something only an individual can instill in himself.