ROHIT: I WAS NOT AT MY BEST AS CAPTAIN

India captain Rohit Sharma has admitted after a forgettable and India’s first ever 3-0 whitewash at home that he was “not at my best” as both captain and batter, and that his team “failed as a unit” because they made “lots of mistakes.”

Chasing 147 to get any possible WTC points from a series already conceded, India crashed and burned to 121 all out against the spin of Ajaz Patel and Glenn Phillips.

“Definitely, you know, something like this will be a very low point in my career, you know, having lost three games at home,” Rohit said at the post-match press conference. “And, yes, we, I fully take the responsibility for that as a captain and as a leader as well. I have not been at the best of my abilities right from the start of the series. And yeah, with the bat as well, I’ve not been good enough.”

For a while, when Rishabh Pant was counterattacking with a 57-ball 64, there was hope for the hosts. But before that it was 29 for 5, and after Pant fell, to a contentious third-umpire’s decision, it all unravelled quite quickly. Rohit looked back on the series as a whole and felt let down by his own decision making.

“Right from the start, I said it. You know, I made a decision about batting first on that Bangalore pitch, which was not right,” he said. “And certain tactical errors also, which didn’t go my way. You obviously take chances with those decisions. Sometimes it comes off. Sometimes it doesn’t. And this time around, it didn’t come off, the certain decisions that I took. So, yeah, I was not at my best of my leadership. And probably cost us the series as well.”

Rohit’s poor series coincided with an excellent one for Tom Latham — who assumed full-time captaincy of the team just last month – and his men.

“New Zealand played better than us throughout the series,” he said at the presentation. “There were lots of mistakes that we made throughout the series, and we have to accept it.

“The first and the second Test, we didn’t put enough runs on the board in the first innings. And we were very much behind the game. This game, we got that 30 [28]-runs lead and we felt that we were a little bit ahead of the game. That target was chaseable. All we had to do was a little bit of application, which we failed to do as a unit.”

Questions about Rohit’s own batting form have been cropping up this series. Apart from a 52 in the second innings of the first Test in Bengaluru, he has managed scores of 2, 0, 8, 18 and 11. On ESPNcricinfo, Sanjay Manjrekar also spoke about Rohit’s captaincy, and what he called T20 tactics in a Test match.

In this chase in Mumbai, Rohit hit two fours in a run-a-ball 11, but fell when he couldn’t get his favourite shot – the pull – right against Matt Henry.

“Look, when you’re chasing a target like that, you want runs on the board as well. And that is something that was there in my mind,” Rohit said. “It just didn’t come off. When it doesn’t come off, it doesn’t look that great.

There are certain ideas, certain methods that I go into bat with. Sometimes it doesn’t come off, and this series it hasn’t come off, which I am very disappointed with.” — EspnCricInfo.