Skipper Virat Kohli’s 160 off 159 balls followed by some fantastic spin bowling from Yuzvendra Chahal (4/46) and Kuldeep Yadav (4/23) helped India beat South Africa by 124 runs at Capetown, on Wednesday.

Happy with his innings, Kohli, who was also the man-of-the-match, said he felt good that his knocks were coming up at the right time and in winning causes. “Well the tour didn’t start off too well but I knew I had to come in and get stuck in for us to compete in every game. It feels very good that it’s coming off in winning causes,” said the skipper.

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Kohli said that though it started off with good pace and bounce, things changed drastically after the 30^th over. “Things were fine initially but there was a drastic change after the 30th over and we immediately chopped down our target from 330 to 280-290. You’re always looking for someone to get bat till the end and it’s amazing if you do it as the captain.”

Praising Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar for their valuable knocks, Kohli said, “It was another good partnership with Shikhar and a good stand with Bhuvi in the end as well. I was cramping towards the end but knew I had to stay till the end to get us 300. These are the times you’re tested mentally as well as physically. We wanted to give the spinners the pressure of defending today and it worked out. The intensity will be more in the fourth game because we can’t lose this series anymore. I’m sure they’ll come all guns blazing so we want to close that door.”

Meanwhile, South Africa captain Aiden Markram looked quite disappointed about the loss. “Everything is disappointing about this. Yet again not up to the mark. We’ve got ourselves to blame and will have to try harder. I felt when we’re in the field we were in. We managed to claw our way back and restrict them to 303 which I thought was chaseable. Unfortunately, we didn’t take it deep enough and you don’t win a match like that.”

Talking about the Indian spinners, Markram said, “We’ve come across them and after all that time if we’re still struggling to pick them, it speaks of their quality. It’s a bit about that and about confidence as well.
Informing about AB de Villers’ return, he said that he would be playing in ODI on 14th. “I think that would spur the guys on,” he said.