Indian captain Rohit Sharma has revealed that he told the bowlers to stay calm in the storm of Ben Duckett in the first innings of the third Test in Rajkot. In pursuit of India's 445-run first innings total, England were very much in the game or even ahead at the close of day 2. They were at 207/2 with 238 behind and Ben Duckett toying with the Indian bowlers.
To add to the worry, the hosts temporarily lost the services of Ravichandran Ashwin, who missed the third day due to a family emergency. But the way the Indians bounced back and the way England's Bazballers' gave their wickets away, was the major turning point of this match.
The Indian captain has revealed the message to his bowlers at that point in time. He said that the message to the bowlers was to stay calm.
"When you're playing Test cricket, it's not played over two days or three days. We do understand the importance of extending the game for five days," Rohit said at the post-match presentation. "They played well, to be honest, and played some really good shots. They put us under pressure a little bit there, but look we've got class in our squad, when it comes to bowling. Obviously, the message was to stay calm because when things like that happen, it's actually easy to drift away from what you want to do as a team. But I'm really proud of how we came back the next day, stuck to what we discussed, and when those things happen, it's a delight to watch," he said in the post-match press conference.
The Indian skipper said there were lots of turning points in the match and another major one was the toss. "Lot of turning points. Once we won the toss...that was actually a good toss to win because we know in India, how important it is to win the toss and put runs on the board," Rohit said. "And the lead that we got was very, very crucial for us. And the way we came out and bowled after that onslaught from the English batters was important for us to stay calm. The bowlers actually showed a lot of character and not to forget we didn't have our most experienced bowler as well. But for this group to come out and get the job done in that fashion was really, really proud to watch," he added.
He said that the surface was not one where one can get easy wickets. "On this wicket, you won't get easy wickets because you have to work hard for it because this surface looks good to bat on and you need to work hard to get wickets. You can't just bowl and get wickets easily. You have to earn the wicket," he said.
