Where’s Your Virat Kohli?’, England Fans Mock India After Edgbaston Loss

in spite of India’s 31-run loss in the first Test of the five-match series against England, India captain Virat Kohli made all the right noises following his Herculean batting effort at Edgbaston. Virat Kohli had 134 runs from his previous 10 Test innings in England, but on this tour, he overhauled that mark with a 149-run knock in the first innings of the first Test. After scoring his maiden ton on the English soil, Virat Kohli returned in the second innings and played a 51-run knock to steer India closer to the 194 runs target set by England. His teammates, however, couldn’t support him and Team India fell short by 31 runs. His superlative batting effort saw him surpass Australia’s Steve Smith at the top of the ICC Test rankings as well.

While there was a section of England fans who hailed Kohli for his performance and joined the Indian fans in singing chants for the 29-year-old, there were some who mocked the Indian team and fans chanting, “where’s your Virat Kohli gone, we have James Anderson…”

Earlier, the Bharat Army had come up with a chant for Kohli after his century in the first innings, “We’ve got Kohli, Virat Kohli, I just don’t think you understand, he’s MS Dhoni’s man, he smashes Pakistan, we’ve got Virat Kohli!”

Kohli, post the defeat, expressed his displeasure over the performance of his batsmen and called out his top order to learn a trade or two from their lower order batsmen.

“Our shot selection could have been better. We definitely need to apply ourselves better with the bat, but England came back superbly.

“There’s a lot to learn from the lower order. In first innings, Ishant and Umesh stuck in there. Again, Ishant showed character here, Umesh stuck it out with Hardik so those kinds of things make you feel like as top order batsmen we need to apply ourselves better.

“Just look at ourselves in the mirror. There’s no hiding from this game. We have to step on the field. Whatever you are feeling inside will come out in no time. We just got to be positive fearless, enjoy our cricket. Try to take the negatives out of the equation, look at the positives and build on those,” Kohli had said.

Kohli’s men, who are trailing 0-1 in the series, will take on Joe Root’s side in the second Test at the Lord’s Cricket Ground, starting Thursday.