India annihilated Australia for the 2nd straight Test as the home team defeated the kangaroos by 6 wickets to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Rahul Dravid, speaking to the media post the game, said that the team is lucky to have Rohit Sharma take over the leadership after Virat Kohli and the MI captain commands a lot of respect in the dressing room.
"He is one of those guys who has been there a long time. The kind of person who doesn't speak a lot, but when he does they all listen. He deeply cares a lot about the dressing room and the players. We are very lucky to have Rohit take over the leadership from someone like Virat," Dravid said after the match.
The head coach also talked about how the bowlers failed to execute their plans during the last session on Day 2 but also added that they made a stunning comeback the next morning. "A bit of a downer to concede too many runs in the evening, I think we bowled probably wrong and were all over the place, and they came hard at us, but we course-corrected this morning. It was just brilliant then how the game moved."
Rohit Sharma, speaking at the post-match presentation hailed India's bowling and the way the attack came back to rattle the Aussie batting line-up.
"Looking at how things were yesterday, the way we came back and finished our job was great. Even if we were just one run behind, I felt we were trailing because we had to bat last. The bowlers were fantastic, to take nine wickets today morning is commendable. And then we finished the job with the bat," Rohit said at the post-match presentation.
Sharma also revealed that the plan was to hit the right areas and wait for the opposition to make a mistake.
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"Every game you play in this type of weather, there is some moisture. What I noticed is there is a lot to offer in the first session, but as it goes on it gets slower and there isn't enough bite. So our focus was keeping it tight in the morning, and these guys are the masters of bowling in these conditions. On a pitch like this, people need to do something different. We were prepared for them coming out and playing shots. Our idea was to not panic and just hit the right areas, waiting for the mistake to happen and that's exactly what happened."
The caravan now moves to Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore where the two teams are scheduled to play the 3rd Test, starting March 1.
