South Africa head coach Enoch Nkwe lauded Team India captain Virat Kohli for his double century on Friday, by calling him a 'world-class player' at the end of day two of the second Test match at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.
The 30-year-old played an outstanding unbeaten innings of 254 runs against South Africa. This was also his highest individual score in Test cricket.
"I mean he is a world-class player. Credit to India today, in terms of how they went about their business. It was a very crucial partnership between (Ajinkya) Rahane and Kohli. Obviously, he led by example and it was a great knock from him. It was superb to watch," Nkwe said in the post-match press conference.
Kohli now holds the record for most number of 200 plus scores, 7, by an Indian batsman. His unbeaten kncok also helped him get past the 7000-run mark in the longest format of the game.
Kohli formed a 178 and 225 runs partnership with Rahane and Ravindra Jadeja respectively. Nkwe said it is the learning which his team needs to take forward into the second innings.
"When you are bowling to the world-class line-up, that's what happens and we take good learnings from that. Very important learning that we need to take forward into the second innings," he said.
The RSA coach also agreed that they relatively have a bowling line up with less experiance and said: "Yes, it is a bit of inexperienced bowling attack we have, we knew that. One thing I will never question is the character of our team and the boys gave their all."
"Nothing really changes in terms of the intent. We just got to keep having a positive mind to score runs. We proved this in the first innings of the first Test. We are not going to back down. It is going to be important that we build a very strong partnership. Obviously, the two batters will have to set them up and it is important that they become a lot more ruthless," Nkwe said.
(With ANI inputs)
