(Reuters) – India captain Rohit Sharma described his team’s 3-0 home series defeat by New Zealand on Sunday as a low point in his career and took responsibility for his lapses as a leader and struggles with the bat.
After stunning victories in Bengaluru and Pune, the Black Caps won the third test in Mumbai by 25 runs to become the first team to whitewash India at home in a series featuring three or more matches.
India were last blanked on their own soil by South Africa in 2000, losing the series 2-0.
“Something like this will be a very low point in my career, having lost three games at home. I take full responsibility as a captain. As a leader, I’ve not been at the best of my abilities right from the start of the series.
“With the bat as well, I’ve not been good enough.”
Rohit was guilty of playing a reckless shot to fall for 11 in India’s chase of 147 on a tough pitch at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
He has made only one half-century in his last 10 innings and fellow batting stalwart Virat Kohli was among several other batsmen who also failed.
“I played a bad shot, but I don’t regret it because that’s given me a lot of success in the past, so I’ll continue to do that,” Rohit said.
“Every now and then I will reflect on what I need to do as a batsman… I know how things work. When things don’t go well the questions are asked. When things go well no questions are asked.
“But I accept the fact that we were not good enough with the bat in the entire series … we didn’t apply ourselves and there were a lot of mistakes that were made.”
Rohit admitted the collective failure of the batting unit was a cause for concern before India’s five-match series in Australia starting on Nov. 22.
“As a player, as a captain and as a team, we have to see how we can correct what we didn’t manage to achieve here,” he added.
“There’s a good opportunity for us to go and do something really special in Australia. So we’ll focus on that. We’ll try and see what needs to be done there.”
Rohit said he was still unsure about his participation in the opening test in Perth, with media reports saying he could skip it for personal reasons.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
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