“Losing a series, losing a Test match is never easy, but [this is] something that is not easily digested,” Rohit said at the presentation. “But again, we did not play our best cricket. We know it and we accept it. New Zealand played better than us throughout the series. We made a lot of mistakes throughout the series and we have to accept them.
“In the first and second Test, we didn’t put enough runs on the board in the first innings. And we were way behind in the game. In this game, we got those 30 [28]-We led and felt like we were a little ahead of the game. That goal was achievable. “All we had to do was a little bit of enforcement, which we couldn’t do as a unit.”
In this chase in Mumbai, Rohit hit two fours in a run-a-ball 11, but fell when he failed to hit his favorite shot, the pull, against Matt Henry.
“Look, when you are chasing a target like that, you also want runs on the board. And that’s something that was there in my mind,” Rohit said. “It just didn’t come out. When it doesn’t come out, it doesn’t look as good. There are certain ideas, certain methods that I come into the bat with. Sometimes it doesn’t come out, and this series hasn’t come off, which disappoints me a lot.
“As captain I wasn’t at my best either leading the team, nor with the bat. That’s from a personal point of view.”
As always, there were positives. In the batting department too, where the younger players Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan and Washington Sundar proved, at various times, that runs can be scored on difficult pitches. Something Rohit (91 runs in six innings) and Virat Kohli (93 runs in six innings) couldn’t do.
“Those guys showed how to bat on these surfaces,” Rohit said of the younger ones. “You have to be a little bit ahead and be proactive when you play on a field like that. Which we all know. We’ve discussed it many times in the last three or four years. We are aware of what we have to do.” “It’s just that this was an unfortunate series where it didn’t go well. We tried to do certain things, but it didn’t go well. That’s why we fell behind in the series.”
