Mumbai, Nov 3 (IANS) India captain Rohit Sharma on Sunday admitted his shot selection was not up to the mark in the third Test against New Zealand but said he had no regrets over it and will continue to play that shot as he was trying to shift the pressure onto the bowlers.
Rohit had started batting aggressively as India chased a target of 147. He had struck two fours before he was out for 11, attempting a pull shot, was late into it and was caught by Glenn Phillips around midwicket.
Rohit said he was trying to put the bowlers under pressure and would continue to play that shot as it had helped him earlier.
“Shot selection in this particular match wasn’t up to the mark, starting from me. The only thing I would say is that when you’re chasing a target like that, you want to try and put the pressure on the bowlers. You can’t allow bowlers to bowl on one particular spot. You have to try and do something about it.
“But, yeah, I will say I played a bad shot. But I don’t regret it, honestly speaking, because that has given me a lot of success in the past. So I will continue to do that,” said Rohit Sharma.
“I accept the fact that we were not good enough with the bat in the entire series. There were a lot of good things also that happened during the series with the bat.
“But yeah, in the first two Test matches, we felt very, very short in the first innings and then New Zealand were ahead in the game that cost us those games. And even Now I thought 147 should have been chasable. But yeah, we just were not good enough at the back. We didn’t apply ourselves. There were a lot of mistakes that were made,” said the India captain.
Rohit admitted that he has not defended a lot in this series but said he has not spent enough time in the middle to defend the ball.
He said that as an opener he would like to set the tone for innings and therefore try to play aggressively.
“So sometimes when the openers go in, they set the tone and sometimes you can fall on the other side of it as well. And this series I have fallen on the other side of it, but I don’t see that I have lost faith in my defence.
“It’s just that I need to spend more time to defend balls which I haven’t done in this series and I accept that I haven’t batted well in this series. But yeah, look, it’s been only these two series where I’ve not had enough time in the middle. The series that I played before Bangladesh, I spent a lot of time,” said Rohit
“As you grow, you try and evolve and I’m trying to evolve as a batter as well to try and see what else I can do So I will relook at my game and see what best I can do,” he added.
The skipper will have to evaluate all these points in the next couple of weeks before they leave for Australia.
–IANS
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