“From The Outside…”: Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir Receive Mammoth ‘Mentality’ Praise

Former Bangladesh cricket team captain Tamim Iqbal was all praise for India captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir for the mentality shown by their side during the second Test match in Kanpur. The first three days of the match was impacted by rain and wet outfield but India came out swinging on Day 4 and their aggressive batting show paved the way for victory. India broke the record for the fastest 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 in Tests and on Tuesday, they bowled out Bangladesh for the second time in the match. Tamim praised the approach and grit shown by the Indian cricket team before adding that such a tactic is only possible if there if full support from the coach and the captain.

“When Bangladesh play against Zimbabwe there’s a lot to lose for Bangladesh, not a lot to gain. A lot of pressure is on Bangladesh. It’s similar to India when India is playing Bangladesh. There’s a lot to lose for India, not much to gain. So in this kind of situation, the bigger teams normally take the safer way and which India could have taken yesterday. Just bat normally 90 overs and see what happens and then give Bangladesh 30-40 overs and see if they can get out. But that is the difference of the mentality of a champion team, and a team who has not been very successful in international cricket. India took the attacking way and it was backed heavily backed by the management and the captain,” Tamim said.

Yashasvi Jaiswal scored another half-century as India defeated Bangladesh by seven wickets in the weather-hit second Test to make a clean sweep of the two-Test series.

India, after dismissing Bangladesh for 146 runs in the second innings, thanks to three-wicket hauls by Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah, achieved the victory target of 95 runs in 17.2 overs, with Jaiswal and Kohli scoring 51 and unbeaten 29 runs respectively.

Earlier, Ashwin (3/50), Jadeja (3/34) and Bumrah (3/17) broke the back of the Bangladesh batting, allowing them the addition of just 120 runs to their overnight total of 26/2.

“You saw the way Rohit came in yesterday, first ball six, maybe the first three shots was almost all sixes, so that shows the mentality and that is the way he wants to lead and that is the way he wants all the other players to perform. So it’s a great example. I think whatever he is doing, I’m not in that dressing room, I don’t know much, but from the outside, whatever he is doing is working for them. Personal milestones, personal achievements are not important, as they used to be before. It’s all about team, whether you get 20 or whether you get 200. If the team needs you, you have to do it, and that is the beauty,” he added.