This team has a bright future, says Rohit

Rohit Sharma, who scored a match-winning century in the fifth and final one-dayer against Australia here on Sunday, said the current Indian team has got an excellent bench strength which could help them touch greater heights.

“It will be difficult for me to comment about which team has the best bench strength. 10 years ago, I wasn’t part of the team, so I can’t (comment about them). But this team certainly has it. You’ve seen it throughout the tournament, whoever has gotten an opportunity they have come and grabbed it and it only shows that we’ve got guys who can come up at any given point, take up the challenge, perform and just go out and do their job.

“We missed (Yuzvendra) Chahal today, Axar (Patel) came in, got wickets. Kuldeep (Yadav) was there and bowled pretty well. Ajinkya (Rahane) has scored consistently throughout the tournament and it only goes to show that this is a solid team and the future is bright,” said the vice-captain in the post-match press conference.

Rohit hailed the bowlers for restricting Australia to 242 which hardly proved a challenge for the Indian batsmen. “To restrict Australia to 242 is never easy. They are a solid batting line-up, especially with the opening partnership they got. Even in the last game, we thought 350-360 will be on the board but we pulled it back. That has been the hallmark of this bowling unit throughout the tournament. We have pulled things back at the crucial time and that has allowed our batters to go and play our game. A lot of compliment should go to them as well.

“Here the ground is big and spinners had a more important role to play. Hitting sixes was not easy. Captain (Virat Kohli) wanted to continuously change the bowling because he didn’t want the batsmen to get used to a certain bowler. Axar, Kedar and Kuldeep restricted them very well.”