Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli rolled back the clock on Saturday against Australia as the two Indian behemoths guided the Men in Blue to a 9-wicket win against Australia in the third and final ODI at Sydney. While the series was already lost after Australia won the first two matches, the veteran Rohit scored 121 and Kohli slammed 74 as the two icons gave Indian fans something to smile about.
“Yeah, fantastic partnership after a long time. I think we hadn’t had a 100-run partnership for a long time. It was good to get that partnership for the team’s perspective looking at how we were placed at one point. We lost Gill early. Not early, I mean, we still managed to get 40, 45 and then Gill got out. So obviously we knew with Shreyas not being there, it was an added responsibility for the batters and it was a great partnership. We enjoyed every moment we spent out there. There was a lot of chatter between the two of us. We played so much cricket together, we understand each other really well. It was about taking the game, understanding what was required at that point and it definitely comes with the experience as well. With so much experience between the two of us, we used it pretty well,” Rohit talked about the partnership with Virat in a video released by BCCI.
Coming off the back of a long break to the Indian side, the Mumbai batter talked about India’s and his own mindset going into the 237-run chase against Australia.
“Once we started to bat, obviously up front with two new balls, it was a bit challenging. The pitch was slightly misbehaving at the start and we knew once the shine of the ball was off, it gets a little easier. So that was the plan. I wanted to bat as deep as possible and see how we can take the game till the end,” he said.
“Sometimes you can think so many things and it doesn’t come off. But today was the day where I thought, okay this is what I have to do and it just perfectly fit into my plans. Obviously when you play in Australia, you got to plan and play. So all the planning and all the understandings I had from the previous experience, I used it today,” the former India captain added.
This was the first time Rohit and Virat returned to the national side after the final of the Champions Trophy in March where they defeated New Zealand. Since then, they have both retired from Tests. The two had already retired from T20Is after winning the T20 World Cup last year.
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