Rohit blames batsmen for defeat at Dharamsala
dharamsala — India captain Rohit Sharma blamed poor batting for the humiliating sevenwicket defeat to Sri Lanka in the first One-Day International (ODI) here on Sunday.
“Two games to go, but having said that we weren’t up to the mark today. Just not enough runs on the board but the bowlers came out there and did whatever they could. Had we had 70-80 runs more we could have had a game on our hands,” Rohit told the media. “There was something in the pitch even when we were bowling but 113 was just not going to be enough,” he added.
The Mumbai batsman urged his teammates to learn from the debacle and put up a better show in the rest of the series.
“It is important that we as a team thrive on conditions such as these and come out good. Not everyday will we get flat tracks and today was a good learning curve. You need to understand your game and come out of such situations. Today was an eyeopener and we need to regroup and do well,” Rohit said.
“Not such a great experience of losing the first match as a captain -- nobody likes losing games and we need to focus on the next two games and come out hard.”
Praising Dhoni for his fighting knock, Rohit hoped that the other Indian players will learn a thing or two from the veteran wicketkeeper-batsman.
Lanka captain Thisara Perera heaped praise on his bowlers after the win. “Firstly we need to give 200 percent credit to our bowlers; they did everything right for us, bowling in the right lines and length. Their discipline was excellent and that was the reason for our success,” he said. —