Rohit Sharma was a disappointed captain after India’s nine-wicket thrashing at the hands of Australia in the third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore.
The visitors were set a 76-run target to win the third Test and they didn’t break a sweat to overhaul it in the morning session on Day 3.
While the Aussies lost Usman Khawaja on the second delivery of the day, the duo of Travis Head (49*) and Marnus Labuschagne (28*) ensured there were no more hiccups and took the tourists over the line.
Speaking after the game, Rohit said his team didn't bat well in the first innings and felt things would have been different if they had done well.
"When you lose a Test match, there's a lot of things which didn't go our way. Obviously, we didn't bat well in the first innings. We understand how important it is to put runs on the board in the first innings. And then when they got an 80-90 run lead, we had to produce another innings with the bat but we were not able to do that. We got just 75 runs on the board. If we had batted well in the first innings, things would have been slightly different," said Sharma at the post-match presentation ceremony.
With this victory, Australia sealed their World Test Championship final spot. India still lead the four-match series 2-1 with one Test to go in Ahmedabad, which the hosts will have to win to qualify for the WTC final.
Rohit said the team will need to regroup ahead of the Ahmedabad Test, scheduled to start on March 9.
"We haven't thought about it yet. We just finished the Test match now. We have some time to think about what we need to do there. We need to regroup and try understand what we did right in the first two Test matches as well. We need to understand no matter what the pitches are, we got to come out and do our jobs. We want to keep things really simple, and follow the plans," he added.
The India skipper further said that the team needed to be brave on challenging pitches and felt that the batters allowed the Australian bowlers to dictate terms.
"When you play on challenging pitches, you have to be brave. I just felt we allowed their bowlers to bowl on one particular spot. Not taking any credit away from their bowlers, especially Nathan Lyon. He was brilliant. He kept challenging us. Hitting the right length.
"When the bowlers are trying to do that, you have to come out with your plans and try and do different things and we needed to be a little brave as well, which I thought we were not. Things happen like that, but we can take a lot of credit as well. How we batted in the first two games, one odd game can happen like that, where things are not falling in place together. It is about everyone coming in together and chipping in with everything they can. This game was all about that. We wanted few guys to stand up and put their hand up and get the team through. But that didn't happen. You will falter in your plans and that's what happened in this game," Rohit concluded.
