NEWS
Follow UsAfter the Rajkot Test, England opener Ben Duckett claimed that England deserved credit for how Indian batters are playing, particularly referring to how Yashasvi Jaiswal batted in the series. That didn’t go down well with many former England cricketers, like Naseer Hussain, who stated that Jaiswal’s batting could be attributed to his upbringing. When the same question was asked to Rohit Sharma in Dharamsala, the Indian skipper was sarcastic, stating the England skipper had perhaps never seen Rishabh Pant bat.
“Yashasvi Jaiswal learning from Ben Duckett? There was a guy called Rishabh Pant in our team. Ben Duckett probably hasn’t seen him play,” Rohit Sharma said in the pre-match press conference in Dharamsala.
This was the first series loss for England in the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum era, popularly known as Bazball. A free-flowing and attacking brand of cricket has defined the path-breaking chapter in English cricket, but Rohit Sharma didn’t buy into the idea, stating he has no idea of what Bazball means.
“I just don’t know what Bazball means. I haven’t seen wild swinging from anyone. England have played better cricket than they were here last time. But I still don’t know what Bazball means,” said Sharma.
Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s premier match-winner, is all set to play the 100th Test of his career in what is one of the most celebrated careers ever. No one has possibly contributed more to the cause of Indian Test wins in the last decade than Ashwin and the Indian skipper was full of praise for the off-spinner from Tamil Nadu.
"Big achievement for any player to play 100 Tests. He has been a match-winner for us. What he has done for us, no praise is enough. His performances over the last five or seven years, every series he has contributed. It is rare to have players like him.
"What you see on the field is a result of a lot of off field stuff and the work done on one's bowling. I have often seen him bowling with just one stump before a match - one hour, 45 minutes before a game. I have seen him regularly bowl at one stump and this has been a process for him.
"The biggest thing is that he is a big team player. In the Rajkot Test when it was a difficult situation for him, he called and said 'I want to come back and do something for the team'. You see this rarely and when you have players like this then your head is held high."
India came back from 0-1 behind to take an unassailable lead of 3-1 with a Test to go. The series tested India’s resilience at multiple points, but India still returned triumphant.
"The way we won is important for me because a lot of the time we were behind in the game and we bounced back from there. We were ahead in Hyderabad but lost that Test. The Vizag Test went neck-to-neck. In Rajkot, we scored big but they came back to bat well and it was important for us to comeback and we did. So after day 2, day 3 and 4 we dominated after they played good cricket," Rohit said.
"Basically it has been a series of comebacks and we made good comebacks in the series. If we were behind on Day 2, we came back well on Day 3. We have come back from being down in one session to dominating the next. So throughout the series you must have seen that we have absorbed pressure and put it back on the opposition."
