XtraTime Web Desk: Chasing a target of 289 runs to win against Australia Virat Kohli led Indian cricket team failed to take the pressure as they lost their first three wickets in just four runs. After that despite of a hundred run partnership between MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma the Men in Blue failed to make a comeback in the game. Centurion Rohit Sharma feels that the team has learnt enough about how to play in pressure situations but now it’s time to go in the middle and execute.
“You will be put under pressure; there will be times when you have to combat these kinds of games when you lose wickets. I think it was a good learning but we’ve said that enough about learning now, it’s time to go an execute – take the pressure, absorb the pressure. International cricket is all about absorbing pressure, today was the perfect example; we were put under pressure and not able to absorb it,” said Rohit while talking to media at the post match press-conference.
Except MS Dhoni the other middle order batsmen failed miserably in the first ODI. Rohit though think the asking rate was way too much when the other middle order batsmen came to bat.
“We believe in Jadeja to play those cameo innings when required but the asking rate was way too much when he came to bat and for any batsman to just start playing shots is not that easy, you have to spend some time to understand what the wicket will do.
Sometimes there will be times where No. 6, 7, 8 need to score those crucial runs. Bhuvi did that pretty well, had no support, but we totally believe in Jadeja to do that. He’s bowling well in the last few series but he’s focusing on his batting and expects himself to contribute as well,” added Rohit.
Rohit and Dhoni shared a partnership of 137 runs for the fifth wicket. On being asked what were going between the two in the middle, Sharma said,” We were just discussing about how we can win the game. Pretty simple with him, doesn’t complicate things, as he came on to bat we spoke about building a partnership because it was crucial at that point and it was great to see him come and bat at number five. We lost three early wickets but he is keen to go out there and bat and get those runs as well.
“It’s a good sign for us that he showed he can come out and bat any time the team wants him to bat. And with him its always you have seen over the years, he tries to keep things very simple and I am pretty similar to that. We never discuss about that target and we only wanted to bat and see where we go after 25 overs and after we got the 100 run partnership we decided that this is the time we need to slightly kick on and make sure that try and put pressure back on bowlers. We were under pressure to build the partnership so obviously that point we only decided that we have got to take the game forward and once we got the 100-run partnership the mindset changed and we decided to kick on and get 6-plus an over.”