Indian captain Rohit Sharma praised young players after victory in the Test series against England: An exciting journey of the Test match series between India and England. India remained without many of its key players throughout the series against England in various major cities of India.
Fast bowler Mohammed Shami was ruled out of the entire series due to injury, and star batsman Virat Kohli took leave to celebrate the birth of his second child.
Opener KL Rahul took part only in the first match and was ruled out of the next Test due to injury. Ravindra Jadeja (hamstring injury) and Jasprit Bumrah (rest) were also absent from the second and fourth Tests respectively.
With these recognized players out, a plethora of young talent seized the chance. Yashasvi Jaiswal is presently leading the run-scoring rankings in the ongoing World Test Championship cycle, having scored two double-hundreds in the series.
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Sarfaraz Khan made an impressive start by scoring two fifties in Rajkot, while Dhruv Jurel showed maturity beyond his years in a player of the match-winning performance in Ranchi.
Captain Rohit Sharma, a successful batsman across all formats of the game, praised the young unit, expressing confidence in their ability to make significant contributions to Test cricket for a long time to come.
“I have spoken enough about key players missing, so I don’t want to talk about it more. But the guys who have come in have done the job perfectly, they have taken the responsibility,” Rohit Sharma said in the post-match press conference.
“You can take a lot of pride from performances like this. Test cricket throws at you different types of challenges and pressures but the way the youngsters have dealt with it throughout the series has been superb.
“In a way, you can say that [this series was a glimpse into the future of Indian Test cricket]. Some of these guys are quite young and you will see these guys playing for the coming 5-10 years regularly in this format for sure.”
The match was made even more exciting by the pitch, which showed turn and unpredictable bounce from the first day. Throughout the whole Test, spinners controlled the action, taking 27 of the 35 wickets that fell
But the pacers also had plenty to give, as demonstrated by a passionate innings from Akash Deep on Day 1. In spite of the favorable bowling conditions, batsmen were able to extract runs off the pitch by showing perseverance and patience.
"It doesn't matter how the pitch looks, how it plays out matters,” Rohit said talking about the pitch. “The game went on for four days. Turn and variable bounce is the nature of wickets in India and it has been for many years.
"It wasn't like the batters couldn't bat at all. If you applied yourself, it wasn't too difficult to score the big runs. Joe Root scored a century. Dhruv Jurel scored 90 in difficult circumstances.
"The bowlers though were quite happy to bowl on this track."
In his compliments, Rohit acknowledged England’s aggressive style, which helped them win in Hyderabad and keep up the pressure on India throughout the series.
"England have come with a plan as to how they want to play their cricket, how they want to bat against our spinners. We saw that in Hyderabad and Rajkot as well. It is important for us to respond to those plans and tactics and I thought our spinners in particular knew what was exactly needed at different times.
“You have to give credit to Ollie Pope and Ben Duckett for those innings that they played.
“We knew before the series started that is going to be challenging and England are going to play differently from the teams that have come here. They found some success as well in playing that way but I felt we were quite composed in how we wanted to play and we were rewarded for that.”
The final match of the Test series between England and India will start from March 7 in Dharamshala. When asked about the possible lineup, considering that India has won the series, the captain decided to keep his options close to him.
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