In what seemed a bewildering journey, Rohit decided to bat, picking three spinners and just two fast bowlers, even though the opening spell was washed out by drizzle and the pitch was under the covers for the most productive part of two days.
“So what if we put a little pressure on ourselves? We want to play well. We want to challenge ourselves. This time, the challenges they threw at us didn’t go well. We didn’t respond.” Well, we found ourselves in a situation where we were eliminated by 46 runs. As a captain, it definitely hurts to see that number, but in 365 days you will make two or three bad decisions.
The Republic of India named three spinners from their XI (R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav) and overlooked fast bowler Akash Deep, who played both Tests against the Bangladesh winger. As it transpired, the pitch had enough backing for the short bowlers, and the Republic of India were reduced to 36 for six at lunch.
Rohit said the reason for choosing three spinners was the naked aspect of the pitch and the fact that Kuldeep has had good luck on flat surfaces.
“Look, we felt like there wasn’t a lot of grass on the court. We thought it would do what was necessary in the first few sessions and then it would change as the game progressed,” he mentioned. “This is how [it is] Whenever we play in India, the first session is always critical and then the wicket tends to stabilize and then the spinners come into play.
“As I mentioned, there wasn’t much grass, so we felt the reason for adding Kuldeep was because he played on flat pitches and took wickets, so we expected the pitch to be negligible. What it turned out to be, obviously a mistake of judgment in tone.”
Another talking point was that Virat Kohli batted at number 3 for the first time since 2016 because Shubman Gill was not fit to play. In six previous innings at number 3, Kohli had scored just 97 runs at an average of 19.40. Those numbers took another hit when he fell into the 12-ball trap, enveloping William O’Rourke’s rising delivery to Leg Gully. Rohit said Kohli had come up so as not to disturb the players below him.
“Expert players are those who have to speed up that waste task and this generation was Virat. He was the person who was ever able to do this. [bat at No. 3]”Rohit said. “We asked him whether he can lead or not. Disagree. 3 as a result of Sarfaraz [Khan] …we also needed to offer Sarfaraz the place where he bats most often [at] 4 and 5, six possibly.
“But we didn’t want to change Rishabh and KL [Rahul] and that’s why Sarfaraz batted for four and Virat batted for three. It’s actually a good sign, we have players who are taking that responsibility and taking on the challenge. It’s a good sign. “After a long time, KL is at number six, so we want to keep him… make him bat there.”
Despite the difficult time of the Republic of India, Rohit was in high spirits and began the convention with a joke: “chalao talwaar” [draw your swords]. It was also strange for an Indian Republic captain to endure the click at the end of such a moment during a Test, and Rohit admitted that they would like to go deep to make a comeback, then New Zealand completed 134 ahead with seven wickets in hand.
“I think to stay in the game we don’t want to let them get away,” he said. “[They’ve scored] Too many runs, clearly it’s 180, so it’s about 140 runs. [134]so [keep them] as little as possible. The wicket seems to be settling down a bit, so we’re hoping the pitch works like that. “We had to hit really hard in the second and try to see if we can make a game out of it.”
Ashish Pant is Deputy Editor of ESPNcricinfo
