A few days prior to the much awaited Border-Gavaskar trophy in Australia, Team India faced an unprecedented and humiliating clean sweep against New Zealand in a three-match Test series at home. Rohit Sharma and co were completely out-classed by the Kiwis in every aspect as the visiting team rightfully took home the prize. This was the first time that India has ever been clean swept in a three-match Test series on home soil. Following the defeat, heavy chastisement has been directed towards Team India in regards to the underperformance of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Nevertheless, some fans and pundits have also turned their attention towards the surface in question.
On Day 3 of the third Test in Mumbai, India were set a target of 147 but slipped to 121 all out instead. Except for Rishabh Pant who made a score of 64, no other batter managed to get past even the 15 run mark. One of the New Zealand bowlers, Ajaz Patel came through the Indian batting order and in the match took 11 wickets.
In a recent event, one of the users reprimanded the Indian batters citing their poor batting, the user mentioned that in older days batters used to play against the likes of Shane Warne and Muralitharan in spin duels.
This prompted Harbhajan Singh, former India spinner, to fire back that the pitch used in the third test was a pitch prepared purposely to favour spinners because the match was only going to take 2-3 days.
“Earlier generations batsmen never played on these kinds of tracks . These tracks are prepared for 2/3 day test matches . You Don’t need Murli, Warne or saqi on these pitches to get the teams out. Anyone can get anyone out,” wrote Harbhajan on X (formerly Twitter).
Earlier generations batsman’s never played on these kind of tracks . These tracks are prepared for 2/3 day test matches . You Don’t need Murli, Warne or saqi on these pitches to get the teams out. Anyone can get anyone out https://t.co/xJynSAfDqS
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) November 3, 2024
After the unexpected defeat to New Zealand, Rohit accepted the blame squarely on his shoulders and said that it was still the team’s failure.
“This will be one of the low moments of my career, and I take complete responsibility for it,” Rohit stated during the post-match press briefing.
“Yes, absolutely (bitter pill to swallow), It is tough to accept series ending losses, that of Test matches, is not the easiest… something totally unpalatable. We did not play well, New Zealand was superior to every single match of the series. There were several misjudgments, which we committed,” said Rohit during the post match presentation ceremony.