London, June 11 (IANS) After suffering their second straight defeat in the World Test Championship Final through a 209-run loss to Australia at The Oval, India captain Rohit Sharma admitted that the side let themselves down a little bit with their bowling on Day One of the marquee final.
On the first day of the five-day clash, Travis Head (163) and Steve Smith (121) took full advantage of lacklustre Indian bowling to stitch a 285-run partnership and helped take Australia’s first innings total to 469, which meant Rohit & Co played catchup throughout the match and eventually lost by 209 runs.
“It was a tough one. We started well by winning the toss and putting them in to bat in those conditions. We bowled pretty well in the first session and then we let ourselves down a little bit with how we bowled.”
“But again, credit to the Australian batters, in particular, Travis Head came in and played really well. That took us off guard a little bit and then we knew it was always hard to come back. We put a up show. We fought hard but congratulations to Australia,” said Rohit in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Rohit also pointed out that barring the 109-run partnership between Ajinkya Rahane (89) and Shardul Thakur (51), none of his batters applied themselves. Despite Rahane and Thakur’s efforts in the first innings, India were bowled out for 296, conceding a huge 173-run lead and in an improbable chase of 444, they were bundled out for 234 in an extended first session on day five.
“We spoke of a lot of things. We spoke of bowling tighter lines. But it didn’t work out. Things like that can happen. I thought it was a great fightback from Rahane and Shardul after being 5 down for 150.”
“They stood up and put up a good partnership there and kept us in the game. We bowled pretty well in the second innings. Again we didn’t apply ourselves with the bat. It was a good pitch to bat on. All five days the pitch behaved pretty well and we didn’t capitalise (on that),” added Rohit.
The opener signed off by saying that India will try to bounce back to win the third edition of the WTC, for which the cycle starts from a two-game series against the West Indies in July. “We’ve worked really hard for four years to make two finals. It’s a disappointment for us. We would like to go one better.”
“But you cannot take anything away from what we’ve done in the past two years. It’s a great effort. A lot of players took part in those series. We’ll keep our heads high and fight for the next championship as well,” said Rohit Sharma.
–IANS
nr/bsk
