(from left) Adam Gilchrist , Ravi shastri, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli (Screengrab) At the end of the third One-Day at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), former India coach Ravi Shastri shared a heartfelt moment with two former India captains — Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.During the post-match conversation, Shastri remarked to the duo, “You two old dogs still have a sting in the tail.”
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Rohit responded to Shastri’s comment, saying, “Looks like it, yes. We enjoy our cricket, most importantly, no matter what accolades we’ve achieved. But it’s important that whenever you get an opportunity to play, you’ve got to come and start fresh. And that’s what we did when we arrived in Perth — forget what has happened in the last 15–17 years, we always wanted to start fresh, and that’s how I personally look at all the games that I play. I’m sure it’ll be the same for Virat as well, but I enjoyed playing these three games.”Shastri also teased Kohli about the two ducks he had registered in this series at Perth and Adelaide.”Fortunately, the ducks have gone off the pond. It is good to be out of the pond,” Kohli laughed.Click here to watch the interview“It’s so challenging when things aren’t going your way. Situations in the middle get the best out of me. Tonight, it was one of those situations.”You scored a lot of runs in international cricket, but then the game shows you everything — even at this age, almost 37 in not many days, it can still feel like not knowing how to get runs. This game is amazing.”We love batting. We love batsmanship. It is so challenging when it is not going your way. When Rohit is already batting there, it becomes easy for you to get there in the middle and rotate strikes. I enjoyed the partnership, enjoyed batting with Rohit. Glad it was a match-winning and finishing stand.
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“Very early on, we understood the game very well. I think from early on, we’ve understood the situation well; that’s what we have always done well as a pair. We were probably the most experienced pair now, but back in the day, when we were young, we knew we could take the game away from them with big partnerships.”That is something we have taken great pride in. It is just about the communication. If we put up a big partnership, play around 20 overs, we know we’ll go a long way in helping the team win, and even the opposition will realize it. It all started from that 2013 Australia series at home. Any total can be chased down, and I always enjoyed batting together.”We have loved coming to this country and played some of our best cricket. The crowd has been brilliant.”