Didn’t expect Australia to collapse in one session: Rohit Sharma

After India’s thumping victory over Australia in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur, India skipper Rohit Sharma revealed that he didn’t expect the Pat Cummins-led side to collapse in just one session.

Notably, India posted 400 runs on the board in the first innings, and with that, Australia were trailing by 223 runs before the start of their second innings. After collapsing for just 177 runs in the first innings, Australia were expected to get better but they couldn’t handle Ravichandran Ashwin’s wrath as the team was bundled out for just 91 runs and suffered a humiliating defeat by an innings and 132 runs.

Following which, Sharma stated that they were planning to grind hard in the middle, spending session after session but Australia eventually bowled out rather sooner than he expected.

“No, I didn’t (expect to bowl Australia out in one session). We were prepared to have hard day’s bowling, spending session after session. We never thought they would get bowled out in a session,” said the 35-year-old in the post-match press conference.

“As you saw, the pitch became slower and slower and there was no bounce on the pitch, so it was a bit of surprise for me,” the Indian skipper later added.

We are the ones who want to play on pitches like these: Rohit Sharma

Ahead of the first Test, the Australian media as well as a few of the pundits questioned Nagpur’s pitch and also termed it ‘systematically doctored’. However, Indian captain Rohit Sharma dismissed all the talks and said they want to play on these kinds of pitches as they have been playing on them for the last 3-4 years.

“I don’t know the mental status of the Australian team. I can vouch for our team and we are the ones who want to play on pitches like these and not just from now, we have been playing on pitches like these for last 3-4 years. Because we have all grown up playing on pitches like these, so there is no talk about pitches anymore in the changing room,” said Rohit.

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