Sydney: Limited-overs vice-captain KL Rahul has revealed the secret behind India’s brilliant comeback in the limited overs series against Australia. He said that after losing the first two ODIs, the players treated the remaining games as a fresh series. KL Rahul pointed out that this attitude stood India good in the T20I series. Virat Kohli and his men won the series 2-1.
“It’s never easy coming to Australia and losing two games and having to make a comeback,” said Rahul. “What we spoke after the first two ODIs was that we are going to treat rest of the four games as a new series and try and win those,” he added.
Rahul termed the white ball series ‘challenging’. He said India were tested in every aspect of the game by the Australians.
“This ODI and T20s has been a learning curve for all of us. We were challenged in every game. It was important that we stuck together as a group and kept believing in each other,” stated Rahul. “We hope that we can improve and keep getting better as individuals and also a team,” he added in a video posted on BCCI’s twitter handle.
Hardik Pandya excelled with the bat in both ODI and T20 games. He was declared player of the series in T20Is. Pandya dedicated the award to his son ‘Agastya’, who was born in July this year.
“I would like to dedicate this award to my son and my family back home. They have been a great support to me throughout,” Pandya said. “It has been an absolute team performance. I am happy to see that we have won the series where we haven’t seen any individual brilliance. Multiple people stepped up in different situations,” he added.
Pandya was the third highest scorer in the ODIs with 210 runs. He made 78 runs in the three T20s. He was all praise for left-arm seamer T Natarajan, who made his India debut in the third ODI at Canberra.
“Special mention of Natarajan as well. Coming from that kind of background, he has seen a lot of hardships. It has been a fantastic journey, lots of inspiration people can get from him. His success shows anyone can achieve anything if you believe in yourself,” Pandya stated.
Washington Sundar, Sanju Samson and Manish Pandey will return to India as the tour now moves to the four-Test series. They expressed happiness on finishing their tour on a winning note.
“I really wanted do well in a country like Australia. Winning two games against them is a good thing. We didn’t really start well in the ODI series. But we came well in the third ODI and T20s and I am very happy we have won the series,” Sundar said.
Samson said it was challenging to stay away from home for so long but everyone showed a lot of heart. “We fought back really well after the two ODI losses. Great heart shown by everyone, the way we came back. Everyone is performing and everyone is in a great mindset after the challenging IPL,” Samson said.
Pandey had special words of appreciation for Hardik and Natarajan for their efforts.
“They (Australia) were playing really well in the ODI series. But we came back well in the T20s. The guys have done really well, especially man of the series Hardik and Natarajan. Really proud to go back on a winning note from here,” Pandey said.