In the glow of victory, the shadows of flaws often remain unseen. But those who seek to achieve greater heights and consistency, do not lose sight of their weaknesses. Even as he had barely celebrated his first Test victory on the home soil as India’s captain, Virat Kohli emphatically spoke about where his team needs to improve in order to be a bigger force. “As a batting unit, we know that we haven’t performed up to our potential,” Virat said, referring to India’s totals of 201 and 200 in the Mohali Test. “The bowlers stepped up and they should get credit for that. I think we made errors in judgment when it came to shot selection, which we know and will be corrected the next time we play.” Virat had no qualms in admitting that India’s current Test batsmen need to pull up their socks when it comes to playing spin bowling. “We have played spin bowling relatively badly in the past,” he said. “It happened in Galle recently. The problem has been that we have often lost wickets in quick successions. Apart from that, everyone plays spin well. It is just a mindset thing where you can think of five shots and areas for one ball. You must only think of the one shot and where you want to play the ball. “That sort of confidence is something that only an individual can instil in his mind. We have spoken about that, having clarity of mind and playing fearless cricket. That’s what we are going to stress on again,” Virat said. The Mohali pitch was made to be the devil by all and sundry, including the media and some of the South African players. Virat, however, said that it were the batsmen who were responsible for most of the 34 wickets that fell to spinners in the Test. “Hashim said that batsmen didn’t apply themselves, and I agree with him. Those who applied got runs. It wasn’t like teams were getting out for 50 runs. So, there is no need to unnecessarily hype up the wicket. “If you see all the dismissals, there was none where the ball hit the batsman’s glove or took off. Most of them were due to the batsman’s mistakes – he either edged or left a straight ball,” the Indian captain said. Elaborating on the technical aspect of playing spin well, Virat once again cited the example of the Galle Test, where India gave up a comfortable position to lose the match in one session against the Sri Lankan spinners. “The wicket at Galle was more of a rank turner than this one. But here the ball spun in. It could be that the ball coming in is more lethal than the ball spinning away. But as batsmen we need to counter that. “It is similar to playing swing bowling. If you set it up for one kind of swing and the ball seams, you should have the right technique to counter that. It is the same with spin bowling. If you are playing for the away turn and it comes in, you should have the time and the technique to counter that,” Virat said. He also agreed that one of the reasons for the Indian batsmen’s recent struggle against spin bowling could be the lack of matches on the turning pitches of India. “We have played a lot of cricket away from home recently and not much on turning pitches at home, and we haven’t played much of domestic cricket. That could be the reason.”