There were a lot of special things about Rohit Sharma’s 82 in the second innings at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Given the situation and given the conditions, Rohit had got his team out of a tough phase when India were reeling at 43/4 at one stage. Not to forget captain Virat Kohli’s 45 that soaked up the pressure in equal measure. After Kohli’s dismissal, Sharma led the charge along with an adamant Wriddhiman Saha to take India to safety. Sharma did get out on 82 not before showing tremendous resilience and resolve. He was patient, gutsy and tackled a difficult pitch with a lot of flair. For Rohit, it was a huge confidence booster ahead of the final Test in Indore. “Personally, it was a great confidence booster in terms of my own batting. When you play an important innings like that from the team’s perspective, it does boost your confidence. You feel good about it,” Rohit said after finishing a stint at the nets in Indore. “We won the Test match as well, so it was an icing on the cake. Nothing pleases me more than getting a victory for the team. I feel it is my best knock in Test cricket so far and I am saying this only because it was in a winning cause. When you win games like those your confidence goes higher. I am feeling confident about the next Test match too.” Rohit’s last century came against West Indies in Mumbai in 2013. Since then has been getting starts, but has not been able to convert them into big scores. He sure was disappointed but that feeling of striking the ball well never went according to Rohit. “Honestly, I never felt I was out of form. I felt I was batting well throughout and it was just a matter of converting those starts into big scores, which wasn’t happening. I was a little disappointed with that. I knew that somewhere down the line if I keep my focus and concentrate more on the process, it would yield me results. You do want to score big ones all the time. Me being a stroke maker, I like to play my shots and get on top of the bowler at all times. I know I might get out, but I have to back my game. That is how you can get success and people around the world have got success. I believe in my game-plan and I have to stick to it.” Rohit made his Test debut at the Eden Gardens in 2013 and it was almost like a given that he would get a telling knock back on the ground he loves the most. “I have always loved that feeling to bat at Eden Gardens and I always feel comfortable going there. It feels homely. It was quite challenging to bat there the other day. The pitch was doing a bit and there was a lot of assistance for the fast bowlers. Some balls stayed low and kicked off the surface and I had to be at it all the time. You couldn’t lose your focus at any given point. You had to get your concentration right all the time and these were the things I was focussing on at that point of time. We played for the first time on that surface and we never expected it to play like that and it required a lot of concentration to come out successful on that pitch. It was a fabulous job from our bowlers as well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar was excellent in the first innings and then Mohammed Shami’s spell in the second was almost like a flashback of his Test debut.” Moving forward Rohit just wants to keep things simple, take all the positive vibes from the previous Test into the final one. “I am looking forward to the 3rd Test. I don’t want to change much in terms of preparations. I carry good momentum with me going into the final Test. I want to keep hitting the ball, get my hands and feet moving, which are very important. I had a good hit at the nets today and I am looking forward to doing the same tomorrow as well. I have to give a lot of credit to our batting coach Sanjay Bangar and training assistant Raghavindraa who have been working tirelessly with all the batsmen to keep them on top of their game all the time. The reason you see all batsmen standing up to the task is because of the entire support staff who have been very supportive throughout. It is a Test debut for Indore and it will be an exciting one. We are looking forward to making it 3-0.”