Former Indian chief selector Sandeep Patil has shared that the side prefers turning pitches at home. He also said that it would’ve been a decision head coach Gautam Gambhir and captain Rohit Sharma took after assessing the strengths of the team as well. Notably, Team India lost to New Zealand in the recently concluded Test series by 0-3 as well.
Speaking to the media during the launch of his book, Patil said: “It all depends on what the team and the coach want. It is dependent on the strength of the team. Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma are the right people to talk about it — they know their strength. No one feels good when our team loses but defeats teach a lot of things. I hope that they would have learned a lot of things from this defeat, a lot of discussion would have taken place in regards to what should be done in future and how. After every defeat, you have always seen the Indian team bouncing back. Not because I am an Indian and we all are Indians, but they will bounce back because they are a very good side.”
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However, Sandeep Patil also asked Team India to go in with a positive mindset for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia as well. He urged them to forget their past success there as well as Team India beat Australia in the last four Test series, including two down
under in 2018/19 and 2020/21.
“They have to play against Australia in Australia, they will have to forget what happened there last time. They will also have to forget what happened in this series (against New Zealand) and look forward. You have to think positive and play positively only then you will get a positive result. If you play defensive cricket and think of winning, it is not going to happen,” concluded Sandeep Patil. “This (series loss) was like a wake-up call. It’s not like our team has been playing badly. A few months back they won the T20 World Cup. There are some big players in our team, surely they will bounce back. They must have learnt so many things from this loss.”
