Indian cricketers KL Rahul (left) and Karun Nair stretch during a practice session prior to the second Test against Australia at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore yesterday.
Bengaluru: India coach Anil Kumble urged his team to move on from the debacle in the opening Test against Australia as the hosts seek a series-levelling victory in the second match starting tomorrow.
On a raging turner in Pune, Australia triumphed by 333 runs inside three days, snapping India's 19-Test unbeaten run stretching back to their tour to Sri Lanka in 2015.
While Virat Kohli's men won in Sri Lanka and West Indies, they also vanquished South Africa, New Zealand, England and Bangladesh for six straight series victories.
"You can't keep winning every game. It has to come to an end at some point of time," Kumble, 46, told reporters yesterday.
"Twenty games in current scenario of Test cricket, it's quite challenging for an international side to keep going out there and winning. That's what this team has been able to do across conditions.
"We have adapted to various conditions and various situations and that's what we didn't do in the last game. That's why the result didn't go our way."
The former spinner, also India's highest wicket-taker in Tests, said Pune was just a blip in an otherwise bumper home season.
"I don't want to look back. We are here to look ahead. As a coach it's more important for me to look ahead," said Kumble, who took over the coaching reins last year.
"It was one of those games where things didn't go our way and we just need to move on. Another three Test matches in the series and we are really looking forward to that," he said. "We have had a fantastic home season and it's just one of those games where things didn't go our way."
Meanwhile, Sachin Tendulkar is expecting India to hit back hard in the second Test against Australia.
"It was a tough Test match for us but it is part and parcel of the game ... Knowing the spirit of the Indian team I know that they will fight back hard," said Tendulkar, who is Test cricket's record run-scorer.
"There are good moments and there are tough moments but it is all about how you stand back on your feet again and start competing. That is what makes the sport interesting."
Much will depend on whether skipper Kohli, who had a match to forget with scores of 0 and 13, can rediscover the form which has brought him four double centuries since last July.
But the team will also need their main spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja to fire after their relatively disappointing performances in Pune.
Ashwin, the world's top-ranked bowler, did take seven wickets in the match but conceded 182 runs while Australia's Steve O'Keefe took 12 for 70 in only his fifth Test.
The sharply-turning Pune pitch should have played to India's strengths, and a concern for Kohli must be that the strip in Bangalore should be more to the liking of Australia's pace attack led by left-armer Mitchell Starc.
