Knew the team will win in Australia after losses in South Africa and England, says former India head coach Ravi Shastri
India(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Former India head coach Ravi Shastri has said that he knew that the team win the Test series against Australia after losing in South Africa and England. Shastri was the head coach of the team when the Virat Kohli-led side had lost the three-match Test series against South Africa by 1-2 and lost the five-match series against England by 1-4. In both series, the bowling department impressed with India managing to take 20 opposition wickets., however, the batting failure meant the team lost both the series.
The team then went on to win their first-ever series in Australia. In this series, the team’s batting performance improved as they batted for more than 160 overs in Melbourne and Sydney. The team scored 443 and 622 respectively in these games. They went on to win the series by 2-1.
Meanwhile, in interaction with Shoaib Akhtar, the 59-year-old spoke about how people started laughing when he called his team as the best travelling team in 2017.
“I think the endeavour was to make this the best travelling team in the world. I said that back in 2017. People started laughing. But indirectly it was a challenge to the boys saying that you can do it, you know, once we had our pace-bowling attack in place. But we got hit by the bullets. We lost a close series in South Africa 2-1. We lost in England as well, 4-1, which could have been 3-2 in our favour with a little bit of luck. But after losing those two series I knew that we are on the way. Now something big will happen,” Shastri told Shoaib Akhtar on the latter’s Youtube channel.
Gave a lot of attention to fitness: Ravi Shastri
The 1983 World Cup-winner added that he and Virat Kohli gave a lot of attention to fitness, which did wonders for the team.
“were strong and fit. Gave a lot of attention to fitness, me and Virat both and it did wonders. And then we turned the corner in Australia. Australia is probably the toughest place in the world to play. They are born to play hard cricket. I knew if we can compete here, and put it across to them, it will be the ultimate.” he said.
