Published 14:46 IST, March 8th 2023
Rohit Sharma has a strong reaction to Ravi Shastri's 'complacency' remark, rubbishes claim
Rohit Sharma refused to agree with Ravi Shastri's comments after India lost the Indore Test to Australia by 9 wickets.
- SportFit
- 3 min read
Ahead of the start of the fourth and final Test between India and Australia, Rohit Sharma made his scheduled appearance in front of the media. The India captain addressed various topics in the presser and cut a confident figure before the match. While Sharma was calm and composed throughout, one instance brought a strong reaction out of him.
After the end of the third Test, which India lost by 9 wickets, former coach of India, Ravi Shastri, who was behind the mic at the point when India lost, stated that team India became a victim of complacency.
"This is what a little complacency, a little bit of overconfidence can do. When you take things for granted, you drop guard and this game will bring you down," Shastri said in the commentary after Australia beat India on the third morning of the Test match.
Rohit Sharma gives strong reaction to Ravi Shastri's comments
When the aforementioned comments were highlighted in the presser, Rohit Sharma said, "When you win two games, if the people outside are feeling we are overconfident, that's absolutely rubbish. You want to do your best in all the games. You don't want to stop by winning just two matches," Rohit said on the eve of the Test match.
In fact, the India captain did not shy away from taking Shastri's name and dismissed the opinion of people 'outside' the dressing room.
"All these guys, when they talk about being overconfident, especially when they are not part of the dressing room, they don't know what sort of conversations happen. Ruthless is the word that comes to my mind, we don't want to give any inch to the opposition. Oppositions never let you come into the series when you tour abroad. We want to do that. If it seems overconfident to people outside then we can't do anything. Ravi himself has been a part of this dressing room, he knows what conversations we have, what mindset we have. So yeah. it's about being ruthless, not being overconfident," he added.
Rohit talked about the Indore Test loss and touted India's failure with the bat as the reason behind the loss.
"We didn't bat well enough in the last Test, that's why we didn't win. Not having enough runs on the game is probably what cost us the game. Toss is not a factor at all in this series. You've got to trust your skills
"Leave the conditions aside, every Test match you play, you've got to find ways to score runs, that is the talk within the group. How much is the pitch turning, how the conditions are we are trying to keep those thoughts away. We have to find our way to score runs on whatever pitches we get. You can't change a lot of things in three weeks, so you just need to adapt and change your mindset keeping your batting approach in mind. More than skills, it's how you mentally want to tackle the opposition bowlers," Rohit said.
Updated 15:01 IST, March 8th 2023