Having steamrolled England today by an innings and 36 runs to seal the series, captain Virat Kohli described India's triumph against the visitors as the best so far under his leadership.
"Out of the five series that we've won, this is the best by far, because of the quality of the opposition, and the kind of cricket that we've played. We're very proud of that, and for me as a captain, this is definitely on top," said Kohli after the thumping victory.
Kohli has literally led from the front by accumulating 640 runs from the first four Tests and his magnificent 235 in this game here at the Wankhede Stadium helped the team reply strongly to England's challenging first innings score of 400 with 631.
Kohli, however, said the series triumph, that was sweet revenge for having tasted defeat against the same opponents, three times in a row, did not come on a platter.
"I don't think it's been easy. We have been put under pressure many times. I think I would give my team a lot of credit for bouncing back from those tough situations. We haven't got anything on the platter. We have had to work hard for it. And it's been a result of constant pressure that we have forced the opposition to make mistakes.
"With the bat as well we have shown really good character to come back into the game, showing enough patience, more than the opposition, so I would credit my team than calling it an easy series. No series win is easy, especially not this one.
"We know England is a quality Test side and we knew that they will try to bounce back. Even in this game after being 2-0 down, they put 400 runs in the first innings. This is not a team that will throw in the towel. They will fight, and we saw another example of it.
"This is what Test cricket is all about. If you are a champion team, you have to play like a champion team to win series and that's what we did."
He also said the pitches in this series have been more true than in the preceding one against New Zealand which his side won 3-0.
"All wickets have been good cricket wickets and we have had to play good cricket to win these three Tests, and none of the matches have been surrendered by the opposition.
"We have used more in-out fields in this series than we did in the New Zealand series so it is pretty evident that the wickets have been better and England have applied themselves more than what New Zealand did. I think new Zealand had lack of experience apart from just Kane and Ross."
Kohli said that the best advice he had received from Sachin Tendulkar after his poor run in England in 2014 was not to read what's written about him and captaincy has taken him off the reading and brooding about part.
"The best advice was not to read and look up things that are written about me. I am not joking or being sarcastic, and that was the best advice I have gotten. That was one thing that kept pulling me back as far as Test cricket was concerned.
"I don't know somehow people enjoyed calling me not a good Test player and it inspired me further to do extra well in this format. Being captain I took my mind more off those things because I didn't have to read up or hear what people had to say about me. It was all about thinking what the team has to do and that has helped me immensely to stay focused on what I have to do on the field.
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Kohli has been in superlative form and has been instrumental in the team's success under his captaincy. However, he said it was a total team effort.
"You cannot alone do it in the middle, and there have been guys who have been part of partnerships in the last two and half years. Once you get the momentum in partnerships then you, as a batsman, can press yourself. So it also depends on your teammates as well, how they help you in tough moments when you are not sort of in-form or want to get back into touch.
"It's been a collective effort. I won't say I have done things by myself. Yes I have worked hard on my game but it's the team that has helped me play in a way I can, play with the same mindset so it has been wonderful since then."
He refused to discuss about where the England batsmen went wrong in the series.
"I'm not going to sit here and comment about someone else's faults. We focus on our strengths, we accept defeat pretty gracefully. We've never complained, we always find faults in our game and try to improve that. That's exactly what we keep doing in every game that we play.
"I'm no one or in no position to question someone else's technique or someone else's faults. They should understand it themselves and work on it. As international cricketers, it is their responsibility. So I'm not going to sit here and play sarcastic mind games. I want to focus on good cricket and that's exactly what we've done."
He also did not see the series victory as revenge for past defeats.
"Not at all, that's all for TRPs. I feel all these little visuals that you see on Star and TV before the series, a lot of the campaigns are pretty exciting for people to watch actually. They like those sort of things, people talking about the series and saying this one will thrash this one. As cricketers, honestly, it's far from what we think about."
His brilliant 235, along with the centuries from Murali Vijay and Jayant Yadav, set up India's great reply, but Kohli rated his Adelaide century as the best among all his 15 centuries, including three double hundreds this year.
"I am still very personally very attached to the one in Adelaide (in 2014-15) in the second innings because that was the beginning of this transition. But this probably can be the second best, in my heart I still rate the one in Adelaide in the second innings higher than the ones I have scored elsewhere."
Giving the example of Jayant Yadav, Kohli said such talent should be identified and pitchforked into international cricket rather than make them wait and lose them.
"Jayant's hundred was outstanding. At one stage even though I was on 140 he was outscoring me. So it shows the belief he has in his game. If you get guys like that, you identify them, you get them into international circuit immediately. Also you need to identify who are the guys that have the game to succeed at international level and not necessarily wait for them to have three good seasons of first-class cricket and then totally be burnt out by that time when they come to international cricket.
"If you see Jayant's record in the first-class cricket, his runs and wickets won't sort of shock you or mesmerise you but here he is and he knows the game perfectly well."
The victory here was highly satisfying for Kohli.
"I would say it was really satisfying. It was a test of patience. Knowing we are 2-0 up, we can't taking anything for granted going into the last Test. You don't want to leave one Test with the opposition still having a chance to level the series. So from that sense, it was very important to wrap it up here.
