Cape Town, Jan 12 (IANS): India batting coach Vikram Rathour on Tuesday praised Virat Kohli for being more disciplined in his off-side play during his fighting knock, adding that the skipper's batting was never a concern for him.

A determined Kohli showed tremendous application and his masterclass was the batting highlight of the fast-moving opening day of the third Test and if not for his effort, India could have landed in a much deeper hole against South Africa at Newlands.

"There was never concern with the way he (Kohli) was batting, I mean he was always batting well, I thought as a batting coach, I was never concerned that he is not batting well, he was looking very good in the nets, he was looking very good in the game also, he was getting starts," said Rathour at the post day press conference.

"One good change today, he was more disciplined, I agree with that, so he really looked good, really good and solid and with a bit of (more) luck, he could have converted (his knock) into a big one, but I am happy (with) the way he played," he added.

However, the coach wasn't pleased with the overall batting performance of his side, saying that batters could have done a better job especially in avoiding soft dismissals.

"These are challenging conditions, not easy conditions to score runs in, but you are right, we are below par. We could have scored 50/60 more runs, that's what we were at least expecting," he said.

"Virat played a phenomenal innings...Pujara was looking really good, but then they bowled a good spell in the morning, the conditions were overcast and they were challenging (for batting), but again I thought there were some soft dismissals in the latter part of the innings, we could have done better definitely," he added.

Rathour also hoped that the visitors would restrict the hosts to a low total on the second day of the ongoing Test.

"The fewer the runs, I hope it will be an equal innings and they won't get a big lead," he said.