There has always been a dash of spat between Ravi Shastri and Rohit Sharma and it now seems that things are boiling out of control as other than the on-field conflict of the two teams, another one is brewing off the horizon and this may very well be detrimental to the image of Indian cricket and that is between Ravi Shastri who is the former Indian coach and Rohit Sharma, the Indian captain.
Former Indian coach, Ravi Shastri said, “This is what a little complacency, a little bit of overconfidence can do. When you take things for granted, you drop guard and this game will bring you down.” This came in the wake of India’s defeat at the hands of Australia in the third match of the series.
Shastri further added, “I think it was a combination of all these things when you actually cast your mind back to the first innings, see some of the shots played, see some of the over-eagerness to try and dominate in these conditions. You reflect back, take a step back or two to analyse.”
Rohit responded saying, “When you win two games, if the people outside are feeling we are overconfident, that’s absolutely rubbish. You want to do your best in all the games. You don’t want to stop by winning just two matches.”
He further added, “All these guys, when they talk about being overconfident, especially when they are not part of the dressing room, they don’t know what sort of conversations happen. Ruthless is the word that comes to my mind, we don’t want to give any inch to the opposition. Oppositions never let you come into the series when you tour abroad. We want to do that. If it seems overconfident to people outside then we can’t do anything. Ravi himself has been a part of this dressing room, he knows what conversations we have, what mindset we have. So yeah. it’s about being ruthless, not being overconfident.”
He also said, “We didn’t bat well enough in the last Test, that’s why we didn’t win. Not having enough runs on the game is probably what cost us the game. Toss is not a factor at all in this series. You’ve got to trust your skills.” Rohit concluded by saying, “Leave the conditions aside, every Test match you play, you’ve got to find ways to score runs, that is the talk within the group. How much is the pitch turning, how the conditions are we are trying to keep those thoughts away. We have to find our way to score runs on whatever pitches we get. You can’t change a lot of things in three weeks, so you just need to adapt and change your mindset keeping your batting approach in mind. More than skills, it’s how you mentally want to tackle the opposition bowlers.”
