Tottenham Hotspur will be looking to make it three wins on the bounce when they host Newcastle United in the Premier League as the race for the top four hots up.

The Lilywhites could not only go three points clear of Manchester United, who are sat in sixth, after their slip-up against Leicester City on Saturday night but they would also put the pressure on their fourth-placed arch-rivals, Arsenal, before their clash with Crystal Palace on Monday night.

However, the Magpies will be no easy task as Eddie Howe has transformed their fortunes at St James’ Park since taking the helm – three wins in their last five outings have seen them move clear of the relegation zone.

Antonio Conte is facing a few injury problems heading into kick-off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, so it will be interesting to see what sort of side he can name this afternoon.

Here’s the XI we’re predicting…

There could be just one change from the side that defeated West Ham 3-1 before the international break.

Sergio Reguilon is doubtful for this encounter, and with Ryan Sessegnon currently absent through injury, it leaves the Italian head coach light on options at left wing-back.

Without the pair, it hands him only two options.

He can either revert to a back four with Ben Davies returning to his natural left-back role, or he could switch Matt Doherty to the other flank and reintroduce Emerson Royal on the right.

It’s the latter that seems more plausible, so the £26m Brazilian defender returns to the team, playing alongside the Irishman, Davies, Eric Dier and Cristian Romero, in front of skipper Hugo Lloris.

Emerson, 23, has not been in the best of form since arriving from Barcelona in the summer, with his performances being described as “terrible” and “horrendous” on occasions.

The midfield remains unaltered, with Oliver Skipp also still missing, so Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur continue in tandem.

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Further forward, the electric trio of Heung-min Son, Dejan Kulusevksi and England talisman Harry Kane will look to continue their fine form together, even despite the big dilemma surrounding Steven Bergwijn.

It’s hard to ignore the Dutchman’s form for his national side this week, scoring three times, twice in the win over Hojbjerg’s Denmark and once in the draw with Germany.

But given the form of the aforementioned unit, Bergwijn may still have to wait for a chance to impress domestically.

AND in other news, Conte handed big injury boost ahead of Newcastle clash…

Regis Le Bris no longer has his entire Sunderland camp to select from, with six figures from his energetic Black Cats squad now out of action at the African Cup of Nations.

While this will surely frustrate the Frenchman, it also presents an opportunity to those on the fringes to stake a claim for a starting space, as a much-changed Sunderland starting XI took to the field against Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday.

Unfortunately, the visitors’ performance at the Amex was largely flat, with the game ending in a drab 0-0 draw.

Consequently, various Sunderland away shirts trudged off at the end unsatisfied with their efforts, even if they held onto fifth spot in the Premier League with a share of the points.

Notable Sunderland underperformers vs Brighton

The natural place to start here is with the personnel who were handed chances to impress by Le Bris, in the wake of the Black Cats’ starting lineup being decimated by AFCON.

In all fairness, Trai Hume would come back into the main XI – with Reinildo on international duty with Mozambique – and look lively from minute one, with the Northern Irishman putting in a battling shift from the left-back spot throughout, as seen in him winning a memorable seven tackles and ten duels, per Sofascore.

The same can’t be said for Simon Adingra, on the flip side, with the Ivorian looking rusty on what was his first league start for the Wearside warriors since October. Indeed, from his hour on the pitch, the forgotten number 24 failed to really strike fear into his former employers at the back, with zero accurate crosses and zero successful dribbles next to his name.

Moreover, Brian Brobbey – who has now led the line for Le Bris and Co. two league matches on the spin – faded in and out of the dull contest far too much, with only one on-target effort registered, before Wilson Isidor came on and looked equally timid on the South Coast.

Thankfully, to counteract the weak performance up top, Sunderland look well-drilled at the back once more, as the aforementioned Roefs collected another clean sheet.

Still, that won’t completely lessen the worry on Le Bris’ shoulders regarding this shaky performance from another one of his attackers, who even mustered up fewer touches than the standout Dutch goalkeeper come the full-time whistle.

Le Bris must now drop this Sunderland star

On another day, Sunderland could well have come away from the stalemate on the South Coast three points better off, with Bart Verbruggen making a crucial six saves in total for the hosts.

Chris Rigg would fire two shots of his own at the 23-year-old’s well-protected goal, with the homegrown Stadium of Light prodigy eager to impress, having been thrown into the main lineup in place of an absent Bertrand Traore.

Rigg’s performance in numbers

Stat

Rigg

Minutes played

64

Goals scored

0

Assists

0

Touches

28

Shots

2

Accurate passes

9/19 (47%)

Possession lost

13x

Accurate crosses

0

Successful dribbles

0

Stats by Sofascore

The table above doesn’t make for the most compelling argument, however, regarding the 18-year-old gaining more starts as Le Bris comes to terms with the amount of selection dilemmas he has to address, with the ropey number 11 only managing to make nine accurate passes all afternoon long, from his minimal 28 touches of the ball.

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As also stated above, that’s less than Roefs amassed, who came away from the even affair with a weightier 48 touches, having also had to stay alert with four saves accumulated.

Looking back at the lack of action, it really was a game where both defences shone, away from both attacks just severely struggling, with Rigg also coming away from the 0-0 draw with zero attempted crosses or zero attempted dribbles, meaning the Black Cats very rarely troubled Fabian Hurzeler’s men on the right flank.

The teenager was a breakout sensation last campaign under Le Bris, with analyst Ben Mattinson even dubbing him “one of the best talents in the Championship” when collecting four goals and one assist during his team’s dramatic promotion story. But it’s clear that he isn’t quite cut out for the bright lights of the Premier League as a starter, just yet.

He will be handed more opportunities to impress, though, with Traore out in Morocco for the latest instalment of AFCON, as the Frenchman now scrambles for more options he can rely on down the right wing, rather just solely relying on the youngster to come good.

Related Sunderland flop is fast becoming their biggest waste of money since Ndong

Regis Le Bris will have a lot of Sunderland selection issues to come to terms with during the African Cup of Nations.

Posts ByKelan Sarson

This was a day so tense and full of unexpected twists and turns that it would have been no surprise had Al Gore turned up to demand a recount. It finished with Auckland 74-2 in their second innings, a lead of 42.The highlight was a gutsy tenth wicket partnership of 80 by Bruce Martin and Graeme Aldridge for ND. This swung the game ND’s way, but Blair Pocock and Richard King did much to move it back again in the final session.With thirteen wickets having fallen on the first day the batsmen had as much trust in the pitch as in a Florida election official. Their lack of faith appeared justified as the heart of ND’s middle order was removed in the first hour.Auckland’s left-arm seamer Richard Morgan was the main destroyer, removing Bradburn caught behind from a bouncer, Bailey caught at short leg and Hood, off stump removed for a debut duck. Morgan demonstrated the twin dangers of the pitch. There was bounce and there was movement. It was difficult to deal with one while remaining alert for the other.Morgan finished with career best figures of 5-44.At 49-7 ND faced a substantial first innings deficit. Simon Doull began the recovery. Doull has a good record with the bat against Auckland, mostly by adopting the no-nonsense aggression he showed here. His 27 included a six over mid-wicket.When Doull’s departure was followed shortly afterwards by that of Robbie Hart, clearly annoyed to have been given out caught behind, it seemed that Auckland would have a lead of forty or so.Martin and Aldridge were soon to prove that to be a false assumption.Their partnership contained strong elements of good fortune, particularly in the early stages. But it contained a good deal of skill too, as well as a large slice of bloody-minded determination. There were few memorable shots, though Martin’s effortless lift over square leg to level the scores was one. The way in which both men resolutely stood up to short-pitched deliveries will be recalled as will their discipline in leaving as much as possible alone.The innings ended when Barnes found the shoulder of Martin’s bat to have him caught in the gully by Canning with the score on 178.Both batsmen left the field with personal highest scores (Martin 51, Aldridge 21 not out). They were only two short of breaking ND’s tenth wicket record against Auckland, set up by Martin in partnership with Simon Doull in the Shell Trophy final last April. Most importantly, they handed ND an unexpected lead of 32.Auckland’s second innings got off to the worst start when McIntosh was caught at second slip by Bailey off a Doull delivery that moved from leg to off. No runs were on the board.A quiet, but important phase of the game followed. Pocock and King put on 70 for the second wicket. It was slow at first, but gradually the shots came more freely. A slow outfield helped to keep the scoring rate down.Almost imperceptably, the balance of the game shifted towards Auckland. Joseph Yovich was the most dangerous bowler, twice having appeals for legside catches to the wicketkeeper, one for each batsman. However, Yovich was limited to one four over spell and may be injured.Doull returned to remove Pocock lbw to one that kept low shortly before the close of play.Today was first class cricket of a high order, not in terms of shot making, but as a contest in which concentration and determination are allied with skill to overcome the opposition and the conditions.These are the factors that will decide the outcome of the game, but in whose favour? To use the phrase with which we have become so familiar in recent weeks, it is too close to call.

Several domestic records were in the offing on a lively first day of the four-day Supersport Series match between the Northerns Titans and the Free State Eagles at Supersport Park on Friday.Sent in to bat, the Titans finished the day on 291 all out. But there were a host of personal triumphs within both teams.Free State fast bowler Victor Mpitsang took a personal first-class best of five wickets in the innings. Mpitsang finished the day with figures of 5-64 in his 18 overs, eclipsing his previous first-class best of 4-37 against Western Province in the 1998/99 season.But the Titans had a magnificent eighth-wicket partnership of 121 runs between wicketkeeper Kruger van Wyk and spin bowler Nigel Brouwers to thank for enabling them to end a once shaky innings with a respectable total.The diminutive Van Wyk surged past his previous first-class best of 20. The stand ended when Brouwers was dismissed for 59, and Van Wyk went four balls later for the same score.The Titans started the match as slight favourites, playing at their home ground and having not lost a game this season. But their comprehensive 153-run victory over the Griqua Diamonds, and their 139-run triumph over the Highveld Strikers counted for nothing against the pace of Mpitsang.The home team were in disarray on 42 for two after only 13 overs. Opener Rudi Steyn top-scored with his 66 runs off 104 balls, including 11 fours and one six.Steyn steered Northerns into the lunch break at 102 for three, with the wickets of Jacques Rudolph, Martin van Jaarsveld and Quentin Still all going cheaply.Steyn’s departure shortly after lunch increased the pressure on his captain Gerald Dros to reproduce the kind of form that saw him score his maiden first-class century against the Strikers last week.Dros was going well on 34 off 57 balls when he became the second victim of the Mpitsang/Brophy connection, which claimed four wickets on the day. The Free State Eagles saw out the remainder of the day’s play on 54 without loss.

Macgill- recalled to squad Photo AFP

Australia has opted to include two leg spinners in its squad for this week’s First Test against South Africa, todaychoosing Stuart MacGill as the slow bowling partner for Shane Warne in a 12-man party.Speculation has persisted all week about who might be plucked from a relatively threadbare slowbowling cupboard at domestic level to participate in a Test match likely to be contested on a spin-friendly surface at theAdelaide Oval.MacGill and Victoria’s Colin Miller loomed as the two most experienced contenders for a berth but neither has been inoutstanding form this season. MacGill’s nine first-class wickets for New South Wales have come at theuncharacteristically high average of 49.88, while Miller lost his place in his state team altogether during themost-recently completed round of Pura Cup matches.The malaise was understood to have had the four-man selection casting the net across a wide range of spin bowlingoptions, even to the point of assessing the readiness of a number of rookies for an unlikely early international call-up.MacGill last played Test cricket just under 12 months ago, when he snared seven wickets in the Fifth Test against West Indiesin Sydney. From 16 matches at that level, he has claimed 75 scalps in total at the impressive rate of 25.02apiece. He made his Test debut – also against South Africa at Adelaide – four years ago.If he were to be chosen in the final eleven for the match – which commences on Friday – it would be only the sixth timethat MacGill and Warne would have appeared together in the same Test team. It would also be the first time theyhave been paired in the same side since the 1999 tour of the Caribbean. MacGill has done rather better in those fivegames, with 24 wickets against Warne’s modest tally of seven.The unlucky player who helps pave the way for MacGill’s reinclusion in his country’s Test squad is paceman Andy Bichel. The fastbowler was twelfth man for each of the three Tests in the recently-completed series against New Zealand and has played only one match for either his stateor his country in the last five weeks. He will return to the Queensland team for four-day and one-day fixtures againstTasmania in Brisbane this week.

ScorecardAfghanistan, the favourites to win Group B at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier, suffered a comprehensive defeat to their closest rivals, Netherlands, who romped home with seven wickets and 43 balls to spare. Having won the toss and decided to bat, only two Afghanistan players – Mohammad Shahzad and Najibullah Zadran – made it into double figures in a meagre total of 90. None of the Netherlands bowlers conceded more than 5.50 runs an over, with Mudassar Bukhari, Paul van Meekeren, Pieter Seelaar and Ahsan Malik all claiming two wickets. Captain Peter Borren then thrashed 38 from 15 balls after two wickets for Mohammad Nabi had briefly checked the run chase.
ScorecardGeraint Jones’ experience helped guide Papua New Guinea to a high-scoring four-wicket victory against troubled Kenya as they chased down 177 with 14 balls to spare. Jones hit 44 off 32 balls, but it was Kila Pala who top-scored with 46 off 30 deliveries as PNG, whose warm-up victory against Ireland now looks less of a fluke, always kept themselves ahead of the rate. Steve Tikolo, drafted back in for this tournament in a desperate measure by Kenya, opened the bowling and conceded 28 off two overs as the PNG openers cut loose during the Powerplay. Although they both fell inside the first six overs, PNG did not let the momentum go to waste. Tikolo had earlier produced his own hard-hitting display with a rapid 38 and Collins Obuya’s unbeaten 53 set up what appeared a commanding total, but Kenya’s bowling proved well below what was required.
ScorecardNepal began their campaign with a huge victory over Denmark, but they will be concerned that they lost five wickets in the chase of a low target, and had to depend on their captain Paras Khadka. Nepal’s bowlers shot out Denmark for 79 in 19.4 overs, with Sagar Pun taking 3 for 12 and Basant Regmi 2 for 8. Only three Denmark batsmen made it into double figures. Nepal’s chase got off to a horrific start though, with two wickets falling before they had scored. Khadka then dominated a 67-run partnership for the third wicket by scoring 48 off 34 balls. After he was dismissed, Nepal lost two more wickets with the score on 68, before they achieved the target in 13.1 overs.
ScorecardA collection of nugget-sized scores from Bermuda’s batsmen allowed them to post 149, after which Janeiro Tucker and Jacobi Robinson took three wickets each to sink Scotland. Bermuda lost wickets regularly after choosing to bat, and only three batsmen made it past 20. Opener Dion Stovell top scored with 29, and Lionel Cann contributed 27. Scotland were comfortably placed in their chase, with three of their top four batsmen getting starts and passing 25, but the rest of their batting line-up fell away tamely. From 109 for 3 in the 15th over, Scotland were eventually dismissed for 131 in 19.5 overs, with Tucker and Robinson doing all the damage.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
What began as a low-percentage humpty from Dinesh Chandimal ended as a high-quality counterattack of 162 not out off 169 balls to set India a tricky target of 176, nearly double the highest successful chase in Galle. He came in with Sri Lanka still 100 runs behind with only six wickets in hand, which soon became a deficit of 97 with five in hand. He scored 162 of the 275 runs that came while he was at the wicket. He did enjoy some good fortune, surviving early on through an umpiring mistake and then through inferior technology available for third-umpire decisions, but the second half of his innings, shepherding the tail, was special. He was helped along by 40s from Lahiru Thirimanne and Jehan Mubarak. India ended the day by losing KL Rahul, lbw playing back to a full ball from Rangana Herath.India were rattled by him, and for large parts you couldn’t tell how they were planning to get a wicket. R Ashwin, though, kept at it, and ended up with four wickets, his first 10-wicket haul outside India. Ajinkya Rahane at slip and gully helped him along, taking five in the innings to reach world-record eight catches in the match.India will, or should, be forced to rethink their absolute stance against DRS. The two decisions that went against them with Chandimal and Thirimanne, both in single figures, did not involve any technology that the BCCI is suspicious of. They were clear edges missed by the umpires – who have been ordinary in this match – and would likely have been easily overturned without looking at any projections of the ball path.This was minutes before lunch, just after Ashwin and Amit Mishra – the latter took three wickets – had broken a brisk and assured 87-run partnership between Kumar Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews. Chandimal came out playing his shots, and his first one was a top edge onto his helmet and through to backward short leg. Not given. If Ashwin was the aggrieved party here, Mishra was to be denied soon. A legbreak took the inside edge of Thirimanne onto his pad, and then into the hands of short leg only for Nigel Llong to join Bruce Oxenford in making mistakes in those frenetic minutes before lunch.Soon Chandimal drove Mishra into the boot of silly point. The ball lobbed up for a catch that India claimed. Replays suggested there was no touch with the ground but not conclusively so. Even though there was no puff of dust, the third umpire couldn’t have been sure given the frame rate of the visuals provided to him.Everything went right for Chandimal. It looked like an innings impossible to sustain. When he connected he connected well, when he mis-hit the ball somehow failed to find a fielder, and the reverse sweeps and the switch hits played with the field. He played a bit like Ravindra Jadeja at Lord’s last year, a low-percentage innings during which all risks came off. Jadeja’s half-century back then gave India a winning lead. Chandimal certainly gave Sri Lanka a chance.Chandimal might have had all the luck with him, but he should get the credit for making the most of his early luck, and at that time Sri Lanka needed someone to break India’s wicket-taking template. He attacked them off their rhythm. His sweeping, reverse-sweeping and switch-hitting distracted the spinners, and the quicks failed to string together good deliveries when attacked. There was a spell of 20 overs without a maiden when India kept going past the bat, but also were taken for easy runs. Whatever pressure would build would dissipate as Chandimal and Thirimanne broke through with some excellent shots. The slog sweep remained their favourite.As Sri Lanka attacked, Kohli’s worried demeanour suggested how tricky chasing on this pitch could be. He will be disappointed that none of his bowlers could maintain any control when attacked. Even with the ball reversing the quicks failed to string together tight overs. Harbhajan Singh remained unimpressive, bowling with little venom or patience. Ashwin, who remained persistent even when Mathews attacked, lost his line and length in face of an unconventional attack from Chandimal. Against Thirimanne, though, he kept the examination on, and made him his seventh left-hand victim in the match when he drew the edge for another excellent catch for Rahane at slip.Mubarak, with an average of 17 after 11 Tests and on a pair, jumped out of the crease third ball, and hoisted Mishra for an emphatic six. Mubarak failed to get a maiden fifty, but played arguably the cleanest innings of the match, driving languidly, using the depth of the crease after front-foot shots, adding 82 with Chandimal to take the lead 110.It was still quite comfortable for India with three tail-enders of modest batting credentials to follow, but Chandimal manipulated the strike expertly, taking 45 of the 83 balls bowled after the seventh wicket and scoring 52 of the 65 runs. He was not averse to taking a single off the fourth ball or later, but when he couldn’t, he managed hit five boundaries off the last two balls of overs from Ashwin, Ishant and Varun Aaron. In the second half of the innings Chandimal looked assured, his risky start a distant memory.Another distant memory was an easy win for India, which looked quite probable in the minutes before lunch. Facing the tricky target, having to play eight overs before stumps, India lost Rahul, but the nightwatchman Ishant Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan – allowed to open despite not taking the field because his hand injury was external – went to stumps unseparated. An interesting chase was set up for India’s Independence Day.Rahane had earlier taken a stunner diving to his left to send Sangakkara back. Sangakkara had been excellent at playing inside the line of sharp offbreaks in scoring 40 in his last innings at Galle, but with 20 minutes to go to lunch he was a little late in withdrawing his bat when he intended to leave a flat offbreak well outside off. Mishra then got a legbreak to kick at a forward defence from Mathews for a catch at silly point. The two looked unplayable during that spell, and might well have been in their hotel by tea but for India’s inexplicable resistance to any form of DRS.

ScorecardRavi Bopara picked up four second-innings wickets to hurry Derbyshire to defeat•Getty Images

Essex completed a comprehensive victory over Derbyshire in their Championship Division Two match by an innings and 188 runs to boost Chris Silverwood’s chances of landing the job as head coach.Silverwood has made it clear he wants to succeed Paul Grayson, who left the club two weeks ago, and this professional performance at Derby can only help his application. Essex were always likely to wrap up victory inside three days given the injuries to Tony Palladino and Shiv Thakor, which prevented them batting, and they sealed a maximum points haul 10 minutes before lunch.Ryan ten Doeschate was the catalyst, taking three wickets for one run in nine balls, as Derbyshire subsided tamely to 182 after skipper Wayne Madsen and nightwatchman Ben Cotton had kept Essex waiting 47 minutes for a breakthrough. But once Ravi Bopara had Cotton pouched at first slip, the end came swiftly leaving Silverwood to reflect on an impressive three days’ work.”It was a fantastic team performance,” the acting head coach said. “We are getting first-innings runs and the bowling attack stuck at it. We did exactly what we said we were going to do and we got the rewards.”I will be putting my hat in the ring and see what comes but first and foremost for me was to see us through the last games and do the best we can. We said next season starts now and we want to set the bar high.”Derbyshire’s season is in danger of disintegrating after they were largely outplayed in this game and Madsen admitted: “We are not trying to make any excuses, this is just not good enough and we’ve got to find solutions to compete in games and stay in them longer. It’s very disappointing the way that we played. There’s no consistency to our play, you need everyone chipping in over the course of the season and we haven’t had that this year.”Madsen and Cotton, who dug in for just short of an hour, at least showed some fight to raise hopes of Derbyshire taking the game deep into the day but Bopara tempted Cotton into a flash that was held above his head by Jesse Ryder.James Foster’s decision to turn to ten Doeschate at the Racecourse End proved inspired as the allrounder had Madsen caught behind down the leg side for 38 and then saw Scott Elstone edge a drive to second slip. When Tom Poynton played back and was lbw, Essex sensed they could finish it before lunch and Footitt’s sliced drive left Wes Durston high and dry with Palladino and Thakor remaining in the pavilion.Derbyshire now have one last chance to win a Championship home game this season when they play Leicestershire the week after next. “We’ve got to perform well in the last game of the season. We don’t just owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the supporters and everyone at the club,” Madsen said.

The India team is not happy with Vineet Kulkarni’s umpiring, and the captain’s post-match report has remarks critical of the official, ESPNcricinfo has learnt. Vinod Phadke, the team manager, said the umpiring was not good, and that he was going to complain about Kulkarni in his report at the end of the series in addition to the captain’s remarks, which he said he has not seen.”I have not seen the captain’s report, but I am going to mention him in my report,” Phadke told ESPNcricinfo. “It is obvious to everybody that the umpiring has not been good.”Phadke’s remarks led to the ICC charging him* with making “inappropriate comments.”At the end of the first Twenty20 international against South Africa, in Dharmasala, captain MS Dhoni had brought up the umpiring issue unprovoked at the post-match presentation. “We did not have quite a few decisions going our way and sometimes these can change the match,” Dhoni said. “It could have been different if we could have got Duminy out early.”

The two decisions that irked India

1st T20I, Dharmasala
16.2 Kumar to Duminy, 2 leg byes, a huge appeal for lbw after the yorker crashes into Duminy’s boot as he misses the flick. That’s absolutely plumb. Bhuvneshwar isn’t usually the emotional sort but he is quite angry. They run two leg byes
1st ODI, Kanpur
7.3 Morkel to Dhawan, OUT, given lbw! But was that missing leg? The ball was quite full from round the wicket, angling into the left-hander. Dhawan was caught on the crease and hit on the pad as he looked to play on the leg side. Morkel went up immediately, and the umpire followed after a short pause … it did look like that would have missed leg stump, or just about clipped it.

Dhoni was referring to the lbw appeal against JP Duminy in South Africa’s successful chase of 200. Duminy looked pretty plumb to a Bhuvneshwar Kumar yorker, but survived. Had Duminy been given out then, it would have reduced South Africa to 157 for 4 in the 17th over. Eventually South Africa won with two balls to spare. In the Kanpur ODI Shikhar Dhawan was given out lbw to Morne Morkel when it seemed the ball was headed down the leg side from round the wicket. India eventually lost that match by five runs.The 36-year-old Kulkarni has stood in 18 ODIs and seven T20Is. The convention in bilateral ODIs is for a local umpire to team up with a neutral umpire. Aleem Dar is the ICC’s neutral official for the ODI series, and it is the home board’s prerogative to provide a local umpire provided he is part of their international panel of umpires. Kulkarni is scheduled to stand in the second ODI, which will be played in Indore on Wednesday. This will be his last match as on-field umpire in the series before he returns as third umpire for the last ODI. This, though, was decided in advance, and has nothing to do with the captain’s report.*October 14, 2015 0950 GMT: This article has been updated with the ICC’s tweet

Virat Kohli has won his last three Test matches as India’s captain, and his team leads an important series against South Africa, but appreciation of his players’ skills has been overshadowed to a certain extent by talk of the conditions that helped them achieve their latest win in Mohali. Kohli, though, is not unduly bothered by the lack of praise coming his team’s way.”It’s only disappointing if you are looking to take what is written or said to heart, or think about it too much,” he said, on the eve of the second Test in Bangalore. “We focus on the process and don’t really think about what’s being written or what’s being said.”The fact of the matter is we won a Test match and that’s what we feel good about as a team. We are not worried about any external factors or what’s being discussed about things that are not in our control. If someone chooses to say or write about something which they feel is a topic of interest, that’s their choice. It’s up to us if we take it to heart or sit down and feel disappointed. We are not at all disappointed. We won a game of cricket. We are very happy about it.”One of the overlooked factors in India’s Mohali win, according to Kohli, was their seam attack. Though Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron only picked up a wicket between them, in a total of 20 overs across two innings, Kohli felt they still contributed by keeping the runs in check – they only conceded 40 runs in those 20 overs.”If those 20 overs go for 100 runs then you are not in a position to win a Test match,” Kohli said. “So they played their role perfectly. It is important for the three guys bowling the most of the overs to have two guys after them who can also maintain the same momentum and control the run rate as well, which is very important in Test matches.”Either Umesh or Aaron will have to make way in Bangalore for Ishant Sharma, who returns to the side after serving a one-match ban. Kohli looked forward to the return of senior pace bowler, whose 13 wickets at 23.23 were crucial to India’s success in Sri Lanka.”With Ishant coming in, he brings in a lot of experience,” Kohli said. “He’s bowled well in subcontinent conditions, knows how to reverse-swing the ball, can lead the pace attack. The combination can or will change according to the conditions. So I would rather have a guy who will give me control in an important time in the game rather than someone who will just get the overs out of way. That combination has worked for us.”We are just trying to figure out, according to the pitch and conditions, who will be doing more of the bowling and what stage in the game. I’m very delighted that Ishant is back. The way he is bowling and the way he bowled in Sri Lanka brings a lot to the table. It is not just about the spinners. We have quality seamers as well. We saw that in Mohali as well. For those two [Umesh and Aaron] to rush the batsmen on that sort of a wicket, takes a lot of heart, takes a lot of effort. So I was really happy to see that personally.”Also critical to the Mohali win were M Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara. The second-wicket pair added 63 in the first innings and 86 in the second, utterly vital partnerships in a low-scoring match.”We all are very proud of both of them, the way they batted in the last game,” Kohli said. “We can learn a lot from them, the way they applied themselves. The batsmen didn’t apply themselves as much as we wanted to as a batting group and we are aware of that. But not taking credit away from the way both of them batted. I think they kept us in the game throughout and that is very important I think, two guys standing up in each innings.”Their contributions in both the innings were very crucial to us. I cannot be relaxed as a captain because I have to bat at four, so if I relax I will probably not be in the right kind of mindset to go out and play. But it is a nice feeling to see two professionals building a partnership and it is always a good feeling to know that you have two guys in front who know how to score runs and who know what they are doing out in the middle. It is always a very calming influence in the change room for the guys sitting outside or the bowlers.”I hope they can keep going in the same way, they are doing a wonderful job. Vijay has been so consistent for us, Pujara has made a tremendous comeback, he is willing to play at any position and give the team a kind of flexibility. That is a great attitude to see from both of them, looking to improve each other and stringing in those consistent performances which are indeed making the team win. I am really, really happy about that and I hope they can continue in the same way.”With AB de Villiers set to play his 100th Test, Kohli had words of praise for his Royal Challengers Bangalore team-mate, calling him a “genuine and good person”.”I want to congratulate him on playing his 100th Test,” Kohli said. “As an individual, I know him well. He’s a very genuine and good person. As an opponent he plays hard cricket. As a batsman, he’s among the top four-five batsmen in the world. I cannot say much more than that. His game and the kind of person he is are there for all to see. For me, he’s a very good cricketer and a very good person.”