India were beaten by Australia in the second ODI encounter© AFP
Indian cricket team skipper Rohit Sharma expressed his disappointment and said that the wicket was not bad enough for his side to lose 10 wickets for 117 in the second ODI match against Australia in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. Virat Kohli and Axar Patel were the only two India batters to cross the 25-run mark as Mitchell Starc ran riot for Australia with a brilliant five-wicket haul. Rohit rued the way Indian batters gifted their wickets on a not so dangerous surface and pointed out how the dismissal of Shubman Gill and himself put the hosts in a tough position in the early overs.
“If you lose a game, it is just disappointing. We didn’t apply ourselves with the bat. Didn’t put enough runs on the board. It wasn’t a 117 wicket. Kept losing wickets and that didn’t allow us to get the runs we wanted. Once we lost Shubman in the first over, myself and Virat got 30-35 runs quickly. But then I lost my wicket and we lost we lost a couple of wickets back to back. That put us on the back foot. It’s always tough to come back from that situation,” Rohit said after the encounter.
Rohit also showered praises of Mitchell Starc as well as the Australian duo of Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh who scored fifties to guide the visitors to a comfortable 10-wicket win.
“Today wasn’t the day for us. Starc is a quality bowler. He has been doing it for Australia with the new ball. He kept bowling to his strength. Swung the new ball and took the odd ball away. Kept the batters guessing. Marsh has to be one of the top players going around when it comes to power hitting. He backs himself to do that every now and then. Definitely in top 3 and 4 when it comes to power hitting,” the India skipper explained when asked about Australia’s performance on Sunday.
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