Mumbai: In an all too familiar let down, India’s cricket team was bowled out for 113 runs loss against New Zealand in the second match of the three Test series. This loss is a watershed as it is the first time that India lost a Test series in the country for 12 years erasing the record of an incredible 18 series wins at home on the trot.
The Indian team has been completely outplayed through out the series as none of its batters or bowlers could come up with a great show. This comes just after India lost the first Test by eight wickets and the loss brings questions on the team and approach into question.
Rohit Sharma Speaking to the Media after India’s Latest Loss
After the match, Indian captain Rohit Sharma was briefing the media about the reasons of his team failure. In spite of undertaking preparatory work, which was expected to give them advantage and helpful spin-straw, Indian team has not managed to use it effectively, and that meant much ended in three days of the match.
Sharma pointed most of his ire towards the batting department suggesting that lack of performance was the reason for the defeat. He said “While the pitch was not a problem we were weak in batting.” We could not come even near their score in the first innings and our batsmen claimed to have failed. More wickets continued to tumbled down, and everyone realised that the game was getting out of our hands. We accepted it and added that we were under pressure because we knew that any target would not be easy given the pitch situation.
It is called collective failure as Rohit puts it
But in the same breath, Sharma voiced dissatisfaction while also supporting his team which again the failure was a bilateral blame game but not exactly the fault of the batting department. He said that, it’s not only the batsman’s or bowler’s failure this is the team’s failure all together. The principle of everyone celebrating victory applies here, where everyone is celebrating success, everyone must therefore take the blame when we fail. Batting has crumbled like this for the first time in the last 12 years. That is why, though on this occasion we can afford it putting aside any off-series, we cannot allow it to become a recurring theme. They say that” Expectations are higher when you play at home.”
Poor show by the batsmen
In the match New Zealand by bat first and they make the target of 259 runs. India failed in their first innings and could score only 156 runs on the board. In response, the Kiwi side was able to make 255 in the second innings which put India on a tricky target of 359 for victory. Indian batsmen failed again, scoring only 245 runs and India lost by 113 runs.