Ahead of the third Test against Australia in Indore, India skipper Rohit Sharma had shed light on his 3-men DRS plan, which includes him, the bowler and the wicketkeeper KS Bharat.

While the hosts did well with their plan in the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi, they didn’t get the desired result in the third game. In fact, India ended up exhausting all their DRS reviews in no time at Holkar Stadium, Indore.

Ravindra Jadeja would be confident with his appeal and even though Rohit could be seen not agreeing with the left-arm spinner’s assessment initially, would concur and lose the review.

“Especially Jaddu (Jadeja) yaar. Every ball he thinks its out!” Rohit said on the eve of the fourth Test in Ahmedabad. “I understand, they’re quite animated, it’s just the passion of the game, but that’s where my role comes in, to say bhai, relax a little, it’s okay if it’s at least ending up somewhere near the stumps, but this isn’t even hitting the stumps, and some balls were even pitching outside [leg stump]! So that was a silly mistake that we made but we hope to correct that in this game and we’ll have a small chat regarding this as well, and hopefully we can get it right in this game.”

The Indore pitch offered sharp turn and uneven bounce, which made it tricky for the DRS decisions.

“Especially in the last game, it was turning a lot, so we had to look at three aspects – pitch in line, impact in line, and then how much the ball is turning. When we played in Delhi, it was not turning so much, so it was only the impact and probably the line where it pitched, whether it’s outside leg or in line,” the Indian captain said.

Wicketkeeper KS Bharat being a newbie isn’t helping India’s cause either while taking the DRS, considering that the domestic games don’t utilize the technology.

“Yes, we accept that we didn’t make the right calls in the last game but Bharat obviously is new to DRS. He’s not kept wickets for India, so DRS is something very new. Ranji Trophy doesn’t have DRS, and India A and all of that doesn’t have DRS, so it’s something new for him as well. So we’ve just got to give him some time and make him understand what it is and all that,” Rohit stated.

 “DRS is a tricky one, honestly. It’s like a lottery. You get it right, you get it right, otherwise… You’ve just got to hope for the best, you’ve just got to understand certain aspects of DRS – pitching in line, impact in line, those kinds of things, because in India there’s not too much bounce, so not every ball that hits the pad, the bounce is going to be a factor, but it’s crucial to understand impact and pitching. So that is how you assess, and that is what we try and do as well.”

“When we played in Indore, we didn’t realise that it’s going to turn so much, so we quickly gathered our thoughts and we said, okay, this looks like it’s going to turn a bit, so we need to understand how much it turns and where the ball will eventually end up.”

“So what we decided at the start of the series is, the talk usually should be between the three of us – the bowler, the captain and the wicketkeeper – but obviously, the guys who are standing in close positions where they can hear the noise, where they can pick up certain things, they can also be involved. It’s not like it’s a three-way conference. But it’s a tricky one,” he further remarked.

Despite losing the Indore Test, India are leading the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2-1. The fourth and final Test is due to get underway on March 9.

(The Indian Express Inputs)