Rohit puts up a brave face

Pune: When Rohit Sharma plonked his frame onto the chair at the press conference on Friday, you could see the wear and tear of Test cricket on the 37-year-old's face. There was more, though. There was sadness. 

He admitted to it during the course of the interaction, but he tried to appease the situation by saying great teams such as the one he captains should be allowed to go through such defeats.

The loss he is referring to is the 113-run defeat at the hands of New Zealand in the second Test which marked the end of a 12-year stretch where India didn’t lose a series at home. 

But his argument, although true if empathy is employed, didn’t sound very convincing nor is it something sides which claim invincibility preach. 

“We have won so many matches in India. Are you thinking about that or not?” he said. “The batters made runs by batting on bad pitches in that period too. This is the first time we have had collapses. We are not able to bat properly. So, it is allowed once in 12 years. If it had been happening for 12 years, we would not have won 18 series. 

“But, see, we have high expectations in India. We have to win all the matches. We have made it a habit. It is not your fault. We have played such a good cricket. So, the expectations have gone above the level. The expectations are that India cannot do anything wrong. It is not like that.”

Rohit does have a point there, but that doesn’t absolve his side of having played the way they have in the last two Tests. When asked about what led to the failures, Rohit pointed fingers at the batting unit. 

“We didn't bat well in the first innings, we got only 150 and the batters do understand that they failed to respond to that pressure, that challenge of playing on whatever pitch,” he said. 

“The pitch was not bad at all, 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 was going to be challenging whatever score we have to get because as the game went on the pitch started behaving slightly differently. To get to 350, we knew that the mindset that we had was wanting to get those runs. We had a great partnership with (Yashavi) Jaiswal and (Shubman) Gill in the middle but again then we lost wickets quickly. 

“After that, we knew that the game was slipping out of our hands and then we failed to respond to that pressure,” he added.  

Despite these failings as a unit, Rohit said the team is not going to press the panic button and make drastic changes. He said he would ‘converse’ with them instead. 

“Because of these two Tests, I am not going to react differently. Look at the number of games we have won in India so there are more good things that have happened than the bad things, so why look at bad things so much,” he pleaded. 

“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 something different is happening, I don't want to create that kind of environment where people start doubting themselves, people start taking unnecessary pressure, that is not how we want to play cricket.”