‘By no means was it a 117 pitch’: Rohit Sharma minces no words in brutal assessment of India’s 10-wicket loss

All it lasted was 30 minutes. Australia looked to bat on a different surface altogether as they hammered the Indian bowlers to race away to the target of 118 with 39 overs to spare and all 10 wickets in hand.

India captain Rohit Sharma was visibly disappointed as he minced no words in his brutal assessment of India’s 10-wicket loss at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam which helped the Steve Smith-led side level the three-match series 1-1.

Like in the first ODI, the top-order was undone by left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc who picked his ninth five-wicket haul on Sunday. Virat Kohli looked to apply himself in the middle and seemed he had cracked the code against Starc before being undone by Nathan Ellis. The rest of the line-up fell like nine pins as India managed only 117, their fourth-lowest total at home and lowest in an ODI match against Australia.

“It is disappointing. No doubt about that. We didn’t play to our potential. We didn’t apply ourselves with the bat. We always knew that was not enough runs. It was not a 117 pitch at all. By no means. We just didn’t apply ourselves,” Rohit, who was dismissed for 13 off 15, said in the post-match presentation.

“Kept losing wickets and that didn’t allow us to get the runs we wanted. Once we lost Shubman in the first over, myself and Virat got 30-35 runs quickly. But then I lost my wicket and we lost we lost a couple of wickets back to back. That put us on the back foot. It’s always tough to come back from that situation. Today wasn’t the day for us,” he added.

Mitchell Marsh scored his second consecutive fifty while Travis Head got to his half-century mark as well as Australia opener wrapped up the chase in 11 overs.

“Marsh has to be one of the top players going around when it comes to power hitting. He backs himself to do that every now and then. Definitely in top 3 and 4 when it comes to power hitting,” said the India opener as he hailed Marsh for his unbeaten 36-ball 66.