It's a collective failure: Rohit after series loss in Pune

PUNE: Rohit Sharma said the reason behind the Pune loss was a 'collective failure'. The defeat was compounded by the fact that the hosts have now lost a series for the first time at home since late 2012 (England).

In a near 30-minute press conference following the three-day defeat by 113-runs on Saturday, the skipper spoke on the series, where the faultlines lay and why there shouldn't be too much read into the performances of R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, who were outshone by the likes of Washington Sundar and Mitchell Santner. Excerpts...

We didn't bat well in the first innings, we got only 150. The batters do understand that they failed to respond to that pressure, that challenge of playing on whatever pitch... the pitch was not bad at all, we just didn't play well enough to get close to that first innings score of theirs, and then obviously with 100 runs behind, we always knew that it was going to be challenging, whatever score we had to get because as the game went on, the pitch started behaving slightly differently...

It happened in two Tests, we had won 18 consecutive series in India, so it means that we have done a lot of good things, we have done good batting in the first innings, and we have done good batting in the second innings.

In this series, we might not have been able to bat the way we should have but such things happen, consistently we have made runs on the pitch, so I don't want to think that we have done a lot of things wrong, I think two or three innings were bad, but it happens.

I think in this series what we wanted to do didn't happen due to our batters, but I can't doubt anyone's ability because everyone has a lot of ability and these guys have won all the matches that we have won in the last series, so I don't want to post-mortem this thing, but yes, we can see what we should do differently in such situations.

All the batters should come with their own plan, all the batters should trust their plan.

On WTC chances being affected (they now need to win four of the remaining six Tests in this cycle to assure qualification)

I think it is too early to think about WTC, I am just hurting because we lost the game. I can't think about what lies ahead and whether it can affect our chances and all of that stuff. We didn't play well enough in these two games, which is hurting clearly... there are things that we need to do as a unit, not just the batters but also the bowlers, it is a collective failure from the bowlers and the batters.

If you lose a Test match it is not just because of one particular thing, it is just the entire unit collectively failing.

On losing the series because of losing three sessions across two games

Because of these three sessions, I am not going to react differently. Look at the number of games we have won in India, I think I was just watching the television, out of the 54 Test matches we have won 42 test matches, that is nearly 80 per cent of the Test matches we have won, so there are more good things that have happened than the bad things, so why look at bad things so much.

Of course, it is important to look at it, but not react so much that the guys who are within the team start feeling that something different is happening, I don't want to create that kind of environment where people start doubting themselves, people start taking unnecessary pressure, that is not how we want to play cricket...

On inculcating the ideology of attacking cricket with the bat

It is through the messages, through the talks that we have, we talk about the stuff that we are required to go and do in the game, so in terms of messaging, I don't think there are any unclear messages about what they are supposed to do. They have come here because they are good at something and that is what we want to rely on.

Because they are good at something, we want to focus more on that part rather than not knowing or not understanding what they don't do or can't do. A lot of us have played a lot of cricket on our strengths, not weaknesses, so weaknesses are there but it is there for you to improve on, work on, but I think when you want to play 10-15 years of international cricket, you work more on your strength rather than your weakness...

Look, there is too much expectation on those two guys. Every game they play, they are expected to take wickets, they are expected to run through the team and they are expected to win Test matches for us. I don't think that's fair, it's the responsibility of all of us to make sure that we get Test match wins, not just the two guys.

Of course, by their standard, they know where they stand and what they haven't been able to do or what they haven't done really well. But again, both of them have played so much cricket here and have such huge contributions to our success of having that home streak of 18 series. These two have played a major role in that.

A couple of series, I am not going to look into too much, especially with those two guys. They know exactly what happens and sometimes they are allowed to have some bad games here and there...