Ind vs NZ, WTC – Rohit Sharma – I wasn’t at my best as a captain and with the bat

“Losing a series, losing a Test match is never easy but this is something that is not easy to digest,” Rohit said at the launch. “But here too we didn’t play our best cricket. We know that and we accept it. New Zealand played better than us throughout the series. We made a lot of mistakes throughout the series and we have to accept that.” .

“In the first and second Tests we didn't score enough runs in the first innings. We were a little ahead of the game. We just had to put in a little effort, which we couldn't do as a unit.

In that chase in Mumbai, Rohit hit two fours in a run-a-ball 11 but fell when he failed to execute his favorite shot – the pull – properly against Matt Henry.

“Look, when you have a goal like that, you want to have runs on the board. And that was something that was on my mind,” Rohit said. “It just didn't work out. If it didn't work, it doesn't look so great. There are certain ideas, certain methods that I use. Sometimes it doesn't work out, and this series didn't work out, which I'm very disappointed about.

“Even as captain, I wasn’t at my best when leading the team or with the bat. This is from a personal perspective.”

As always, there were positives. In the batting department too, the younger players – Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan and Washington Sundar – showed at various points that runs can be scored on difficult pitches. Something that Rohit (91 runs in six innings) and Virat Kohli (93 runs in six innings) failed to do.

“These guys have shown how to bat on these surfaces,” Rohit said of the younger squad. “When you play on a pitch like this you have to be slightly ahead and proactive. We all know that. We've talked about this a lot over the last three or four years. We know what we have to do.” It's just an unfortunate series where we tried to do certain things, which is why we fell behind in the series.