India captain Rohit Sharma said he didn’t anticipate the Pat Cummins-led team to crumble in just one session after India’s crushing victory over Australia in the opening Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur.
Notably, India scored 400 runs in the first innings, and as a result, Australia trailed by 223 runs before their second innings began. Australia was expected to improve after crumbling for only 177 runs in the first innings, but they were unable to withstand Ravichandran Ashwin’s wrath as they were bowled out for only 91 runs, suffering a humiliating loss by an inning and 132 runs.
“No, I didn’t (expect to bowl Australia out in one session). We were prepared to have hard day’s bowling, spending session after session. We never thought they would get bowled out in a session,” said Rohit Sharma in the post-match press conference.
Rohit Sharma smashed a century
“As you saw, the pitch became slower and slower and there was no bounce on the pitch, so it was a bit of surprise for me,” the Indian skipper later added.
Ahead of the first Test, the Australian media as well as a few of the pundits questioned Nagpur’s pitch and also termed it ‘systematically doctored’. However, Indian captain Rohit Sharma dismissed all the talks and said they want to play on these kinds of pitches as they have been playing on them for the last 3-4 years.
“I don’t know the mental status of the Australian team. I can vouch for our team and we are the ones who want to play on pitches like these and not just from now, we have been playing on pitches like these for last 3-4 years. Because we have all grown up playing on pitches like these, so there is no talk about pitches anymore in the changing room,” said Rohit.
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