XtraTime Web Desk: Indian men’s cricket team head coach Ravi Shastri took a dig at the critics who thinks that Virat Kohli led Indian cricket team won the limited overs series because of the absence of some star Proteas cricketers and beside that he also said that most of them feel happy when the Indian team loses.
Virat Kohli & Co. lost first two tests at first, but the World No.1 test side came back strongly in the third Test at Johannesburg and after that they didn’t stop and won the ODI as well as T20I series on the Proteas soil and became the very first Indian team to win a series in South Africa.
But on being asked during an interview with the Mid-Day what is his thought with the limited overs series win against the hosts since that was not their best XI, Shastri gave a furious reply.
“This is the biggest problem with our critics. When you win, the other team is not playing well. When you win in Sri Lanka, they are a weak team. When you play South Africa, they are not at their best. Remember, a team is only as good as you allow it to be. It’s as simple as that.
“No one says the Indian team were not at their best when we lose. No Indian says that. When we lose, we lose. Ah, but when another team lose, they were not at their best. I can’t fathom and I don’t have an answer for that. By the way, we are not playing players, we are playing a country so I don’t care what is on offer. I am playing against South Africa. Who plays for South Africa is not my problem,” he said.
According to Shastri the Indian team was same competitive what they were in the limited overs series when they lost two back to back Test matches. He further added that decision of batting first in the third Test shows their positive approach they took that time.
“We always believed we could win. Very few people saw it, but we could have won both those games. Sometimes you feel in your country, people are happy when you lose. We pulled out a calculation where we looked at sessions and we were just two sessions behind and those cost us two Test matches. I said, take the positives out of that and go into the next Test match to win — not to draw — to win! Not many teams would have batted first on that [Johannesburg] track. It was a nasty one,” he added.
Shastri also felt that it was time the touring teams stopped complaining about pitches in India since the Indians did not once complained against the quality of pitches for the Test series and instead gave their best in all conditions.
“We don’t complain about pitches. We go and play and the message is very clear — when you come to my country, never question the pitches because I will say, ‘take a fu****g walk.’ We don’t give excuses; we play on what we are offered. That’s how my boys play. And it’s a ground rule — no complaints, no excuses… it’s the same pitch for both teams.”
Shastri, however, was worried about the scheduling that keeps players on the road for most of the year.
“(It’s a) Big worry. I feel for the players and that is why we have rested so many for the Sri Lanka series (three-nation T20I tournament). They are human. In our country, the expectations are so high that you have to win in whatever format you play,” he said.