George Bailey: Virat Kohli turned the tide for India

Virat Kohli has been in stellar form for India

ESPNcricinfo reports that Australia skipper George Bailey has stated that “smart cricket” deployed by Virat Kohli helped India overcome his team. Kohli created history when he became the first Indian batsman to score a century off 52 balls. Australia could not manage to prevent India from scoring 359 in the match played in Jaipur.

“He started attacking us from ball one but never took any risks which would have helped us come back into the game.

“He set the tempo and it was smart cricket from him. Basically all three of them [Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma] batted amazingly, but it was Virat who took the game away from us. [The match slipped away from Australia] the moment Virat came to the crease,” Bailey said.

Australia initially gave India a hard time in the opening match but India redeemed themselves quickly in the next game, according to Bailey. In spite of that Bailey said that his team will fight back. “The fuller deliveries were going over our head while the short ones were hit to the side [square] boundary. [But] we still have five matches to go. We will go to a new venue and it will be a new venue.”

Bailey insisted that there was no cause for alarm as his teams batting and bowling was still strong.

“The manner in which we batted was great. We also bowled well in one of the matches. I would like to take these positives into the next match.”

The next ODI will be played in Mohali on Saturday.