Rohit was the opener as India crossed fifty in the fifth over and finished with 40 off 24 balls, having provided the necessary ignition to score 326 for 5, a total that was well above par on an Eden Gardens pitch that helped spin. But after the game, he said his approach was not premeditated.

“Not really, it’s something we didn’t discuss, to be honest,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation when asked if there was a conscious effort to be aggressive against South Africa. “Gill and I have been batting together for a long time and that’s how we’ve batted together for most of our innings. We let our instincts speak for us, we let it take over in the middle and we didn’t pre-plan. “Everything. “If the wicket is good, we want to go out and play the kind of cricket we are playing and everything will fall into place.”

“If we look at how we played in the last three games, we played better [against South Africa] in terms of adapting to the situation,” Rohit said. “They put a bit of pressure on us against England where we lost three wickets up front and then we recovered and got a decent score and the seamers did the job for us. In the last game too we lost a wicket in the first over but there we formed a very great partnership and then we got a good score and again the seamers came to the party.

“Again today was not an easy pitch either, someone like Kohli was needed to come out and resolve the situation. Don’t forget that. [Shreyas] Iyer, creating that partnership for us and getting the runs on the board and then we knew we had the runs on the board and it was time to keep the ball in the right areas, and the field will do its thing.”

“Honestly, even if they hadn’t paid me, I would have kept that faith,” Rohit said. “It’s important to let the guys have freedom in the middle. It’s important to make them understand what’s expected of them. And I also understand that that’s not going to happen in every game. You have to keep trust in the guys who have done the job.” job”. I work for the team, it can’t be done every day but when it happens everything looks good.

“That’s what happened with Shami. In the first few games he wasn’t part of the races he expected by his own standards, but [in] “The last two games have shown the class he has.”

“Jadeja has been really good,” Rohit said. “He is a great match-winner for us, playing in all three formats for many years. He keeps doing the job, goes unnoticed a lot of times, but today was a classic case of what Jadeja is for us: scoring runs. “In the back and then go out and take grounds. A very important player. “He knows exactly what is expected of him from the team.”

“This is something we have been constantly talking about in our dressing room. We should not get ahead of ourselves. There is still a long way to go in the tournament,” Rohit said. “It’s important that we stay in the moment. That’s the constant conversation since the first game, it’s not that we want to change anything or that we’re talking about something else. When we get to the game, we want to play well and to our potential.”