Heaping praising on Rohit, Dravid said: “Whatever I say will fall short.

The way he has worked with the team, his strategy, his maturity, the team’s response to him, and the time he spends in strategy, planning, discussion with all of us.

“I cannot speak more highly about him as a cricketer and also as a person.”

India have worked well as a team

Although his individual effort was a key factor, Rohit said it was very satisfying to win a game with a collective performance.

“I thought we adapted to the conditions really well. The conditions were a little challenging. We had to adapt and that’s been the success story for us so far. You know, till this game, we have adapted to the conditions really well,” he said.

Rohit said at one stage, he felt a 140-150 run target would be good enough but revised it in his mind.

“Then we said, OK, another 20-25 runs more. But again, you know I can set the target in my mind, but I don’t want to let anyone know about it to the batters because they are all instinctive players.

“We got to 170, which I thought was a very good score on that pitch. And then the bowlers were fantastic.”

The Mumbaikar also lauded his spinners, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel, who shared six wickets between them.

“I thought they were very calm. They exactly knew what to bowl. And we had a little chat first after the first innings. We said, try and hit the stumps as much as possible, keep the stumps in play and that’s exactly what they did,” he said.

Asked about the final heartbreak that the team endured in the ODI showpiece seven months ago, Rohit said the focus right now is on staying calm.

“We’ve got to keep making good decisions throughout the 40 overs and that will help us making the game through.

And I thought in this game as well, we were very steady, we were very calm. We didn’t panic too much.

“We’ll try our best, that’s all I can say. The team is in good shape, they’re playing well. All I can hope is to put up another good show come the finals.