Rohit extols Ashwin and Jadeja after their spin masterclass

After winning the first Test against West Indies by an innings and 141 runs, skipper Rohit Sharma revealed that the team had no intention to bat again and thus, their aim was to bat long and deep. He also added saying that the experience some of the players have on these kinds of surfaces is immense and it eventually helped the team win the match by a huge margin.

The 36-year-old also lauded his trump card Ravichandran Ashwin, who managed to pick up 12 wickets in the match. In the first innings, the Chennai-born cricketer picked up five wickets to restrict the home team to 150 while in the second innings, West Indies managed to get to only 130 as Ashwin picked up seven. Ravindra Jadeja too looked sharp in the spin-friendly conditions of Dominica as the skipper praised the spin duo after the completion of the Test.

“I would like to start by saying it was a great effort with the ball. Getting them out for 150 set the game for us. We knew batting would get tough, it wasn’t easy to score runs. We knew we wanted to bat only once and bat long. Get over 400 runs and then we came out and bowled really well.

“The results speak for themselves, they have been doing it for a while. There isn’t much to tell them, it is about giving them the freedom to express. The experience these guys have on pitches like this is always a luxury. Both Ash and Jadeja were superb, specially Ashwin for coming out and bowling this way was class,” Rohit said after the match.

Yashasvi Jaiswal has the talent, he has shown us in the past that he is ready: Rohit

Yashasvi Jaiswal was phenomenal with the bat. He showed a lot of courage and determination and with that, he became one of the rare cricketers to hit the three-digit mark on his debut. Rohit was impressed by his knock of 171 runs as well and eventually lauded the cricketer and also revealed the kind of chat he was having with Jaiswal in the middle.

“He (Jaiswal) has the talent, he has shown us in the past that he is ready. Came and batted sensibly. The temperament was also tested, at no stage he was panicking. The chats we had were to remind him that ‘you belong here. You have done the hard yards, enjoy your time here’,” Rohit said.