If you win at home, not a lot is spoken about: Rohit Sharma

RANCHI: India captain Rohit Sharma Monday rued the lack of adequate recognition for a Test series win at home and the critics’ tendency to go after the team with all their might in the event of a defeat.

Rohit emphasized the importance of a Test series win regardless of the venue, opposition, or conditions, his observation coming after the hosts flattened a trend-setting England team for a 17th consecutive series win at home.

“Home and away, you can differentiate between the two but if you win at home, not a lot is spoken about, it’s like ‘oh no India are supposed to win at home’,” Rohit said at the post-match press conference.

“If you don’t then I know what happens as well, but yeah, as you said clearly every series win, whichever team you play against, whenever you play, Test series win is a Test series, no matter the conditions or the country you play in,” he added.

India beat England by five wickets on the fourth day of the fourth Test here to claim an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match rubber.

Basking in the glory of yet another series win at home, Rohit though was not sure if this would make up for the heartbreaking defeat in the ODI World Cup final to Australia after a glorious run.

“It’s grueling. Playing a five-match series is not easy. That’s what Test cricket is all about.

“You find your way, keep fighting, whatever contest you are in, with the bat or the ball, you have to do that consistently over a period of maybe five to seven weeks.

“So it’s quite pleasing. But again, I don’t want to compare the World Cup and this series win because both are different formats. But I am quite pleased with this result,” he said.

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“I have no idea. We have not sat down and discussed,” the India skipper said of his lead pacer who was rested for the fourth Test in line with the team’s workload management.

Praises youngsters, Rohit praised youngsters such as Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Sarfaraz Khan, and Akash Deep for displaying grit and unflappable temperament at the highest level.

“These guys have come in and have done the job perfectly, they have taken the responsibility perfectly, and I mean you can take a lot of pride from performances like this with inexperienced players,” Rohit said.

Chasing 192 on a challenging fourth-day track, Gill and Jurel completed the task with an unbroken 72-run partnership after Rohit was dismissed for a brisk 55.

“Whatever you say, Test cricket throws different kinds of challenges, different kinds of pressures, but some of these (youngsters), the way they have dealt with the pressures throughout the series, has been superb.” He added, “Many of these guys are quite young, and you’ll see these guys playing regularly in this format for the coming 5-10 years for sure.” Jaiswal ‘hunky-dory’, Opener Jaiswal, who is the top scorer of the series so far with 655 runs in eight innings, is “hunky-dory”, according to Rohit.

“Our job is to make sure that the environment is there for the youngsters to go out there and do the job, and that is what we try and do with a lot of these players,” Rohit explained.