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Indian skipper Rohit Sharma lavished praise on India’s youngsters who stepped up at different times in their Test series win over England. In the absence of Virat Kohli and KL Rahul for the last three games, the likes of Sarfaraz Khan and Rajat Patidar were handed opportunities with the former scoring twin fifties on debut. Yashasvi Jaiswal has had a fantastic start to his Test career as well, scoring over 600 runs in the ongoing series.
On Monday (February 26), Dhruv Jurel stepped up with a crucial unbeaten 39 and batted in measured fashion alongside Shubman Gill to guide India home in the Ranchi Test. Jurel had also led India’s fightback earlier in the Test by scoring 90 in the first innings. “Lot of these guys are quite young and you’ll see these guys playing in the coming 5-10 years regularly in this format for sure,” Rohit said after the win. “The way they have come and took the responsibility, scored a lot of runs, big runs and with the ball as well some of these guys was quite impressive.
“This is the toughest format and in this tough format if you want success and want to excel then you will have to keep that hunger in you. We will give opportunity only to those who are hungry. you get to you who is hungry and who is not. You get to understand and who are hungry and they want to play and perform in tough conditions then those players will get preference, it’s as simple as that. it’s no point playing them if there is no hunger (in them). I don’t see anybody in this team who doesn’t have the hunger. All these guys who are here and not here want to play. We all went through this that we have limited opportunities and if you don’t grab your chance it goes away. It is normal and it happens in cricket. Whoever uses the opportunity and help the team win and perform those get noted and it is important.
“A lot of these guys are quite grounded, to be honest. Jaiswal is still hunky-dory, but other than that all these guys are quite humble, they come from a humble background, so they obviously take that into their game as well. Our job is to make sure that the environment is there for them to go out there and do the job, and that is what we try and do with a lot of these younger players. They have spent a lot of time playing domestic cricket, so they are quite aware of this particular format, playing longer innings, bowling longer spells, they’re quite aware of that. And just when they come in for a series like this, obviously it’s important for us to understand what their thinking is, and then obviously mix and match a little bit with what we think and what they think, and then you form a strategy around it.”
Rohit was also less critical of the wicket even though the game didn’t last four days. “One guy made a hundred, one a 90 and two made 50s,” the skipper pointed out. “Wicket may be any way to look at, but that doesn’t matter. What happens on it, matters. I think whatever we saw of the four days’ play… It’s India’s nature that the ball spins and it remains low. Not just now, but this has been the case for 50 years. It’s not that the batters couldn’t bat, and bowlers couldn’t bowl. In fact, bowlers were very happy to bowl on this wicket. Even for batters, if you applied yourselves, making big runs wasn’t difficult. The way Root batted, made a 100. Dhruv Jurel played in such a situation for the first time, second Test and he made runs. More than the runs, see how many balls he played. If you can survive more than 150 balls, there is nothing left.”
Given how England were in control of this game at different junctures, the victory was even more pleasing, according to Rohit. “Firstly for Dhruv to get us to that total was quite crucial, along with Kuldeep,” he said. “That partnership was very crucial for us. But yeah, when you’re playing on a wicket like that, which is a little challenging, you know you’re always in the game, and then you’ve got to rely on the experience of our spin bowlers who’ve bowled a lot in these conditions to bring their A game, which they clearly did.
“For me, obviously, when I’m on the field, it is important to understand what they want to do as a bowler, what are the areas we want to hit consistently, and I thought we did that pretty well in the second innings. We hit that area consistently, and yeah, we got rewarded for that, and then we knew 190 was going to be a little tricky but once you put your head down and focus on the job at hand., the guys showed that you can achieve it.”
Apart from this Test, England have challenged India on various occasions throughout the series and even managed to get a series lead in Hyderabad. Rohit did reserve praise for the visitors but was happy with how his team responded to the different challenges thrown at them. “England have come with a plan as to how they want to play their cricket, how they want to bat against our spinners,” he noted. “We saw that in Hyderabad, we saw in Rajkot as well, and then it’s important for us to respond to those plans, respond to those kind of tactics, and I thought our spinners in particular – Jadeja, Ashwin, Kuldeep – they’ve been around for a long time now, and know what is exactly needed at different points.
“But to be honest you’ve got to give credit to Ollie and Ben Duckett, the way they played in their innings, and they played some really good shots. You try and find your way, when you’re pushed against the wall, and I thought in Rajkot, when we were behind the game a little bit, we found a way to come back and get a lead of [126], and then, even Hyderabad, I thought, having a lead of 190 there and then coming down to chase 230, we felt that it wasn’t a wicket where you could be rolled over for 100 or 110 like that. We just were not brave enough in that game. We fell short by around 20-25 runs there, but again, certainly, we knew before the series started that it is going to be a challenging series, and England is going to play slightly different cricket than the rest of the teams who have come here, and to be honest, they have found some success as well, in playing that way.”
