Virat Kohli-led Team India has won lot of accolades for their recent performance in South Africa but were subjected to a lot of criticism from the Indian media at times as well.
India lost the Test series 1-2 but then won the ODI series 5-1 and T20 series 2-1 to make it a successful tour.
After their return from South Africa, coach Ravi Shastri has hit back at the critics of the Indian cricket team. Ravi Shastri, in an interview to Mid-Day, said that some it felt like people are happy when Team India loses.
“We always believed we could win. Very few people saw it, but we could have won both those games. Sometimes you feel in your country, people are happy when you lose."
"We pulled out a calculation where we looked at sessions and we were just two sessions behind and those cost us two Test matches. I said, take the positives out of that and go into the next Test match to win – not to draw – to win!.” said Shastri.
Shastri was also not happy when he was asked about the South African side not being at their full strength during the limited-overs series. South Africa missed the services of Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock for most part of the ODI and T20 series.
Shastri said that it was the biggest problem with Team India's critics. When India wins they always say that the other team is not playing well or is weak team.
"This is the biggest problem with our critics. When you win, the other team is not playing well. When you win in Sri Lanka, they are a weak team. When you play South Africa, they are not at their best. Remember, a team is only as good as you allow it to be. It's as simple as that," he said.
"No one says the Indian team were not at their best when we lose. No Indian says that. When we lose, we lose. Ah, but when another team lose, they were not at their best. I can't fathom and I don't have an answer for that. By the way, we are not playing players, we are playing a country so I don't care what is on offer. I am playing against South Africa. Who plays for South Africa is not my problem," added Shastri.
