India head coach Ravi Shastri’s words have come back to haunt him in the last year. He had called the current Indian team the best traveling side the country has produced in the last 15-20 years. Shortly after, India lost the Southampton Test to England going 3-1 down in the five-match series and losing the series.
This made Shastri a butt of jokes on the internet. However, Virat Kohli had defended statements of Ravi Shastri during press conferences. But now, Kohli and Shastri now had the last laugh, as India created history by defeating Australia 2-1 in the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy and registered their first ever Test series win down under.
Now Ravi Shastri has given it back to the critics and said, "When you are honest about what you want to achieve, you have that passion and the hunger to go out there day after day, who cares what people say. Look at scorebook, look at the result the rest is history. You can keep jabbering away.”
"I feel the people who jabber away are minority, you don't know the millions of fans this Indian cricket has. Thank you for picking us up when we are down and you outnumber the jabbering crowd," Shastri told India Today's Boria Majumdar.
"There has been no Indian team that has won in three countries in a year. We won a Test match in South Africa, won a Test match in England and won a Test match in Australia. You have to take your chances to realize what is the best combination,” he continued.
"If you are scared of experimenting then you'll never know what is the right combination. You might make mistakes and why do you make mistakes... so that you learn from those mistakes. But you'll be dumb if you keep making those mistakes, so get smart. Learn from your mistakes," Shastri added.
Now India will take Australia on in a 3-match ODI series and Shastri said its important to shift the focus on white-ball cricket.
"We take one step at a time. Red ball cricket is over, the word overseas will never be used again. Now it is white ball cricket. These matches will be use to experiment, to try different combinations. It won't be all about winning, it will be about the combinations so that come the World Cup you will know this my 12,” he said.
"We have 3 against Australia and 5 against New Zealand and 5 at home against Australia. You have 13 games and you have to mix, match and try what is the right combination. We want to win but is not an all course and experiment so that we are ready for the World Cup game one," Shastri concluded.
(indiatoday.in inputs)
