NEW DELHI: India captain Rohit Sharma urged his staff to deal with the upcoming third Take a look at quite than dwell on their shock sequence defeat to New Zealand. The Kiwis claimed a historic 113-run victory in Pune on Saturday, snapping India’s 12-year unbeaten residence Take a look at sequence streak and securing their first-ever Take a look at sequence win on Indian soil.
The defeat not solely ended India’s 18-series residence profitable streak but additionally jeopardized their possibilities of securing a spot in subsequent 12 months’s ICC World Take a look at Championship (WTC) closing. India’s lead within the WTC standings was reduce to only 0.32 PCT, they usually now want 4 wins from the remaining six Exams within the cycle, 5 of that are in opposition to Australia in Australia.
Regardless of the numerous impression on their WTC closing possibilities, Rohit emphasised that the staff’s speedy precedence is the third Take a look at in opposition to New Zealand quite than considering forward to the ultimate.”I’m hurting as a result of we misplaced the sport,” Rohit mentioned within the post-match press convention on Saturday. “It was not a pitch to attain 250, and we simply need to come out with higher intent and mindset within the final Take a look at. As for the WTC Closing, we’re not fascinated about that in the meanwhile.”
Rohit avoided dwelling on the outcome, noting that the staff has had a constant run of success at residence through the years. “It has occurred within the final two Take a look at matches, however we’ve received 18 consecutive sequence at residence, which implies we’ve achieved quite a lot of issues proper. We’ve carried out exceptionally nicely over the previous variety of years,” he mentioned.
As a substitute of conducting a “autopsy” of the defeat, the Indian skipper acknowledged the challenges the staff confronted and highlighted the resilience of his gamers. He additionally counseled New Zealand’s batters for his or her composed strategy in tough situations.
“I don’t need to doubt anybody’s potential,” Rohit added. “These guys have helped us stay unbeaten at residence for thus lengthy, so I don’t need to do any postmortem. However we will see what we will do to return out of such conditions, and our batters ought to belief their plans.
“New Zealand batters additionally confirmed that for those who put bowlers below strain, issues will occur in your favour,” Rohit concluded.
India will intention to salvage delight within the closing Take a look at of the sequence as they appear to rebuild momentum for the challenges forward.
