Mumbai: Despite his second innings with the Indian cricket team turning out to be hugely successful, team director Ravi Shastri is of the opinion that nothing comes easy and the players should never stop from ‘expressing themselves’. Shastri is also of the opinion that one must enter the field with a desire to win and anything less is unacceptable.
“In my playing tenure during any match, my sole desire has always been to win… nothing less,” Shastri, who is enjoying a three-day leave has been quoted as saying by a vernacular daily. “That is the mentally I have tried to imbibe among the boys and they have been able to achieve that successfully,” he added.
Since his return at the helm of the Indian team, Virat Kohli’s boys have won nine straight matches in Sri Lanka and then have beaten Australia 4-1 in the ODI series at home. It incidentally is the biggest-ever margin of victory for India against Australia in an ODI series. Shastri has said that it has been possible because of team effort, but most importantly the constant desire to improve has helped the side hugely.
“Look, individual performances may help once in a while… consistent success is only achievable if you play as a team,” Shastri pointed out. “The present team have 9-10 players, who can turn a match on its head. It can be Rohit (Sharma) one day, Virat, Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar), (Jasprit) Bumrah, MS (Dhoni) or even Yuzvendra (Chahal) and Kuldeep (Yadav). Such is the depth of the team. They play as a unit and back each other to the hilt. That is the main reason why success has come on a consistent basis.”
Shastri has always believed in ‘keeping things simple’ during his playing days and he is following exactly the same routine as coach. “That’s the idea… do the basics right, set up your goals and pursue them relentlessly. We have just been doing that,” he asserted.
The former Indian captain also said that he had backed his instincts to the hilt when he had sent Hardik Pandya to bat at No.4 during the Indore ODI. “I’ve always backed my instincts when I was captain. It is the same now also. But you know what, it’s not only instinct. To take a challenging decision you need to have oodles of courage,” he signed off.
