Skipper Rohit Sharma accepted feeling ‘hurt’ after India suffered a home Test series defeat against New Zealand, as the hosts lost the second Test in Pune by 113 runs to concede the three-match rubber. This was India’s first home Test series loss since 2012 as the Black Caps dominated the proceedings at the MCA Stadium in Pune. Despite the defeat, Rohit didn’t throw his players under the bus as he said he doesn’t doubt anyone’s ability in the longest format of the game.
“I do not doubt anyone’s ability. I won’t do much postmortem of this, but batters must come with their plans and trust in the plans like New Zealand batters showed,” Rohit said during the post-match press conference. “It’s disappointing. It’s not what we expected. We got to give credit to New Zealand as they played better than us. We failed to respond to those challenges.”
Youngster Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill stitched an attacking 62-run stand to start Day 3 for the Men in Blue with the southpaw ending up with a brilliant 65-ball 77. However, India didn’t have a single partnership over the 40-run mark as Mitchell Santner, ran through the Indian line-up yet again, finishing with 6/104, taking 13 wickets in the match – the second-best figures by a spinner on Indian soil.
“I didn’t think we batted well enough to get runs on the board. You’ve got to pick 20 wickets to win, yes, but batters have to put runs on the board. The batters do understand that they failed to respond to the challenge of playing on whatever pitch. We just didn’t play well enough to get closer to that first innings score of theirs, and then obviously with 100 runs behind, we always knew that it is going to be challenging whatever score we have to get because as the game went on, the pitch started behaving slightly differently,” the Indian captain said. “It was a great fightback to restrict them to 250-odd (in the first innings) but we knew it was going to be challenging. It wasn’t a pitch where a lot was happening. Things would’ve been slightly different had we got a bit closer in the first innings,” he said.
The Indian team’s planning and execution—both with bat and ball—fell flat against the Kiwis in both Bengaluru and Pune. Be it decision making, shot selection or ordinary bowling, the hosts have been outplayed by the Black Caps. When asked what has gone wrong for India in the series, Rohit said, ” We lost the series, that is hurting clearly. There are things that we need to do as a unit. Not just the batters but also the bowlers. It’s a collective failure from the bowlers and the batters. If you lose a Test match, it is not just because of one particular thing. It is just the entire unit collectively failing. When you win a Test match, everyone deserves that credit. If you lose a test match, it’s the same way.”
When quizzed about India’s constant batting collapses against spin, the Indian skipper said: “Because of these three sessions, I am not going to react differently. Look at the number of games we have won in India. I was just watching the television, and out of the 54 test matches, we have won 52 Test matches. That is nearly 80 per cent of the Test matches we have won. There are more good things that have happened than the bad things. So, why look at bad things so much?
“Of course, it is important to look at it. But not react so much where the guys who are within the team start feeling that, ‘oh, something different is happening. I don’t want to be in that kind of environment where people start doubting themselves. (9:54) People start taking unnecessary pressure.’ That is not how we want to play our cricket. Of course, you will lose a series here and there. For good 12 years, we had that great run, which meant that we were doing a lot of good things in those periods.
“Just because we have lost a series, I don’t think there is anything that we need to talk differently or do differently. But yeah, we need to find ways to come out of those situations,” Rohit said.
Having lost two matches on the bounce, India’s chances of qualifying for the World Test Championship Final has taken a huge hit despite being atop the points table.
“I am hurting because we lost the game. I can’t think about what lies ahead and can it affect our chances (WTC Final). We didn’t play well enough, and we lost the series and that is hurting. There are things we need to do as a unit,” he said.
With the third and final Test to be played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, the Indian team would look to bounce back and save a clean sweep.
“We want to show up well at Wankhede and try and win that Test. It’s a collective failure. I’m not somebody who would blame just the batters or the bowlers. We will come out with better intent, better ideas and better methods at Wankhede,” Rohit added.