India captain Rohit says defeat was due to collective failure

India captain Rohit Sharma welcoming New Zealand captain Tom Latham after the second test. , Photo Credit: K Bhagya Prakash

Eleven years and 10 months after the series loss to England in December 2012, India’s 18-series unbeaten run in Test matches at home ended on Saturday when New Zealand completed a 113-run defeat in the second Test and won 2-0. Took the lead. Lead in the three-match series.

Apart from making a dent in India’s fort on home ground, this defeat can prove to be a big blow. Ultimately, losses in consecutive weeks mean India will have to win four of the remaining six Tests to book a place in the World Test Championship (WTC) final.

However, captain Rohit Sharma downplayed the WTC chances. “It is too early to think about WTC. I’m just sad because we lost the game. I can’t imagine what’s going to happen next and whether it may affect our prospects and other things,” he said.

He said, “We could not play well in these two matches and that is sad. We lost the series, we are clearly feeling sad. But there are some things that we need to do well as a unit, not just the batsmen but the bowlers as well. This is a collective failure of the bowlers and batsmen. Everyone has to take the blame.”

But Rohit did not hesitate to highlight the failure of the batting unit as the main reason for India losing consecutive Test matches at home and losing a Test series in India against New Zealand for the first time.

“We couldn’t do what we wanted to do in this series because of our batsmen, but I can’t doubt anyone’s ability because everyone has a lot of ability and these guys have won all the matches we have played in the last series. Had won.” That’s why I don’t want to do its post-mortem,” Rohit said.

“Yes, we can see what we should do differently in such conditions, all the batsmen should make their own plan and rely on it. New Zealand’s batsmen have shown that if you play one way and put pressure on the bowler, it will work.

Despite two defeats, Rohit refrained from pressing the panic button. “It happened in two Tests. We have won 18 series in India, so it means we have done a lot of good work. In this series we probably didn’t bat the way we should have but such things happen.