Rohit Sharma speaks during a press conference ahead of the third ODI against Australia.
| Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI
Rohit Sharma didn’t play in the first two games of the ODI series against Australia, but he was delighted to watch the team putting up a dominant show.
“I thought we played a lot of good cricket, and achieved a lot of good things,” the Indian captain said here on Tuesday, ahead of the final ODI.
“We chased in one game, we batted first in the other, got a decent amount of runs and we bowled pretty well in both games.”
He is, however, constrained by the absence of some of the players for Wednesday’s match.
“We have got players who are sick, some have personal reasons and they have gone home,” he said. “Few of the players are rested as well.”
He added there were only 13 players to choose from. “Shubman Gill is rested. Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur, and Hardik Pandya have gone home,” he said.
“Axar Patel is obviously not available for this game. There is a bit of viral going around… and a bit of uncertainty right now which we cannot help. Looking at the next few weeks, it is important for us to look after the players.”
Rohit was all praise for off-spinning all-rounder R. Ashwin, who returned to ODIs after a gap of 20 months.
“He has got the class and the experience of playing the sport and handling the pressure,” the skipper said.
“It is just that he has not played ODIs in the last year or so, but you cannot take away the class and the experience… and in the last couple of games we saw how well he bowled. Hopefully, the way things are at this point of time… we have got all the back-ups ready.”
He said he wasn’t thinking too much about a possible whitewash of Australia or being the World No. 1.
“You want to play good cricket and you want to achieve certain things on the field,” he said.
“It is pretty good (being No. 1), but it does not really matter what kind of ranking you go with or what sort of performances you have had in the past.”