Mumbai: Despite the Indian batters’ disappointing performance in the 0-3 whitewash against New Zealand, captain Rohit Sharma expressed the team’s determination to regroup and overcome this setback. He reassured the fans that India has a good opportunity to ‘do something really, really special in Australia.’
India is scheduled to visit Australia for a five-match Test series, which has become crucial after the team slipped down the World Test Championship standings. The World Test Championship is a league competition for Test cricket run by the International Cricket Council, and India’s position in these standings reflects their performance in Test matches over a certain period. India has won the last two editions of the Border Gavaskar Trophy and is hoping for a hat-trick of series wins.
But the batting unit’s abject surrender against New Zealand, especially the failure to score by the team’s two senior-most players—Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli—has left people doubting India’s chances against India Down Under.
“Obviously, it’s a cause for concern without a doubt. If you know the batters are not performing, that is a cause for concern. But what’s done is done.
“Now I think, as a player, as a captain, as the team, we all have to look forward and see how we can correct what we didn’t manage to achieve here,” said Rohit Sharma in the post-match press conference after India’s 0-3 whitewash by New Zealand on Sunday.
“There’s a good opportunity for us to go and do something really, really special in Australia. So we’ll focus on that. We’ll try and see what needs to be done there. Like I said just now, most guys have been there, and few haven’t been there.
“So it’ll be a good challenge for guys who have been there also and the guys who are travelling for the first time to Australia. So yes, without a doubt, we know, we do understand the importance of the series, but just right now, it’s just trying to understand what we didn’t do right,” he added.
He said they will have to address the mistakes they made in the New Zealand series.
“We made a lot of mistakes (in the NZ series), so I think those mistakes need to Be addressed and something that we will talk about. And then moving forward when you land in Australia, I think it’s important to just focus on that particular series, the first test match. You know, it’s a five-Test match series. So it’s important to break down those test matches, focus on one Test and then just take it from there,” said the India captain.
Asserting that the coaching staff has been very good with them, encouraging and understanding despite the recent results not going in the team’s favour, Rohit said it was the players’ responsibility to make their jobs and lives easier.
“It’s the players’ responsibility to make their job or make their life easier because it’s never easy for anyone to come in and start doing what they are doing because there are a lot of different individuals here and they operate slightly differently. So the players need to make sure that the thought process of the coaching staff aligns with those thought processes and take it forward. Like I said, it’s been only four or five months now. Too early to judge anything, but so far, they’ve been really, really good with the players,” said the 37-year-old from Mumbai.
He said getting the Indian squad, which includes some young players, ready for the upcoming Australia tour will be challenging.
“That’s going to be very, very challenging. You know, we do talk a lot about the game, and all of that, but again, sitting with every individual and telling them what needs to be done or how you need to get your mindset right is something that is going to be challenging for us because they come up with a certain mindset, certain thinking about their own game, and it has given them success in the past.
“We all understand that Australia is going to be a different ballgame. But for all the young players who haven’t been there before, it will be important for us to create an environment where they feel comfortable and don’t get intimidated by where you’re playing and who you’re playing against.
He said they are not going to a “classroom setup” and stress too much on each individual’s tasks.
“But, as a group, the last two times we’ve been there, we won the series, so we can take a lot of confidence from that and then keep moving ahead with that. We don’t want to create a classroom where we make everyone sit and talk to them about what needs to be done. They all understand, and they all are quite smart about their plans. So I expect them to, you know, come really, really good in Australia as well,” said Rohit.
About the possibility of India not having a practice game ahead of the Perth Test, Rohit said the match simulation they are going to have India A would be a better option.
“Rather than practice match, we have planned a match simulation kind of a thing with India A. I sometimes think when you play that practice match, we’re travelling with a squad of 19 players, and it’s a three-day game that we are allotted, and I don’t know how much workload we can get done in those three days in terms of getting everyone prepared.
So I mean, we as management as well, we feel that rather than having that practice game (with India A), the match simulation where the batters can spend more time in the middle and the bowlers as well can bowl a lot of balls, So that is something that we as a team feel more comfortable doing rather than playing a practice game because game time, which refers to the actual time spent playing in a competitive match, is not a problem. All of us have been playing a lot of cricket, so it’s just about spending time in the middle.
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–IANS
(File Photo: IANS/Nitin Lawate)
