'It was my misjudgement to bat first' - Rohit Sharma takes the blame on himself for India's poor performance on Day 1 of 1st Test match vs NZ

Captain Rohit Sharma made the bold decision to bat first in the 1st Test match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru, against New Zealand, which backfired him. Under the cloudy sky, with New Zealand's tall pace bowlers, batting was clearly a wrong decision. This became evident when India were all out in just 46 runs, with no batter scoring more than 20 runs. 

Regarding India's performance, Rohit owned his wrong judgment of the pitch and blamed himself. He clearly said that it looked like the pitch would be flat but it turned out to be different. Rohit said, "On a pitch where there were assistance for seamers, and now that we got out for 46, you can say the shot selection wasn’t up to the mark. It was a bad day. It was my misjudgment to bat first. I was expecting a flat pitch, but I couldn’t read the pitch well."

He also spoke about KL Rahul's batting performance and why Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant were sent above him. As per the skipper and the team, Rahul has played some good knocks in the position and they didn't want to disturb him. "We don’t want to touch KL’s batting position much. He has found a place at 6, so let’s give him a rope there. So, Virat wanted to take responsibility. We had a discussion, and he was fine with it. That’s a good sign that players are taking responsibility," said Rohit at the press conference. 

The key is just worrying about what you can control: Matt Henry

New Zealand's key bowler, Matt Henry, was the standout bowler of the match as he claimed a fifer against India in Bengaluru. He was the nightmare of the batters as he was swinging the deliveries constantly and changing the line and length, which disturbed the batters. He spoke about the game plan and what the team decided to do in such conditions. 

"We were hopeful. There was a lot of grass taken off, we tried to apply pressure for as long as we could. The key is just worrying about what you can control. For me it was about working on my game and taking the opportunities that I got," said Matt Henry.