You have to be smart when you plan your batting on grounds like these: Rohit Sharma on India’s approach at The Gabba

It was a fine turnaround of affairs from Team India, especially the final over that saw Mohammed Shami claiming three wickets while also affecting a run-out, making it four scalps off the last four balls.

Australia went from 180 for 6 to being bundled out without adding a run while India rode high on some impeccable death bowling featuring a couple of picture-perfect yorkers while Virat Kohli plucked out a mid-air ripper that could have otherwise been a match-winning clout for the hosts.

Talking about the decision of holding Mohammed Shami till that last over, Rohit Sharma was vocal about how he wanted to make this a tough test for the incoming Indian quick. He was highly appreciative of the manner in which Shami approached that final over and executed his plans to seal the fate of the contest.

Rohit said, “Honestly, he is coming back after a long time. So we just wanted to give him an over. This was always the plan from the beginning," Rohit said on Star Sports. "He comes and bowls at the death. We know how lethal he can be with the new ball. We just wanted to give him a little bit of a challenge, coming and bowling that death over and we saw what it was.”

Not only did Rohit talk about Shami’s fine bowling in the end, but he highlighted how India navigated the lengths of the boundaries and played perfectly according to the dimensions of the field.

The Indian captain said, “You have to be smart when you plan your batting on grounds like these. Hitting boundaries and sixes, of course, sounds nice, but you cannot forget pushing the ball in the gap, running between the wickets really hard and trying to get eight-nine runs in an over. [It's] also a quite safe plan to have and it's something we have been talking about.”

Highlighting the differences from their last warm-up game, Rohit concluded by saying, “When we played in Perth [against WA XI] as well, the practice game, one side of the boundary would be large and it was a great practice for us today."