Rohit shuts out the noise and gets back among runs

Though India was defeated by 27 runs in the final ODI at Lord's against England, former India skipper Rohit Sharma played a fighting knock while chasing a tall target. The India opener felt the vistors played good cricket all along but fell short in the end. 

"A little disappointed with the result, I thought we were playing really good cricket," Rohit told BCCI.tv post the Lord's clash. 

"The way we started in Birmingham, we played really good cricket. We fell a little short at Cardiff with the bat - there was not enough score on the board. And here (at Lord's) again, that was a massive total to chase.

"We tried everything we could with the bat, but again fell short by 20-25 (27) runs."

With a lot of speculation surrounding his retirement, Rohit chose to answer them with the bat with a spectacular century, wherein he became the first Indian to score an ODI ton at Lord's. 

Rohit also now has eight ODI centuries now in England, tied with Marcos Trescothick at the second position, only below Joe Root who has ten. 

"I love playing in England, there is no doubt about it.

"The atmosphere, the ground, the pitches - when you turn up here to play any format, it challenges you in different ways and that's what you want as a cricketer. 

"You want to be challenged all the time and yeah I had my time in the middle, I enjoyed it."

The 39-year old shared a 113-run partnership with Virat Kohli during his 138 (110) as the Indian veterans tried to take the team closer to the massive total.

"We (Kohli and I) played our entire career together, so it was nice to have him in the middle.

"We've had a lot of partnerships, it is always fun batting together, we understand each other so much.

"It is always nice in the middle bouncing off ideas, try and see what we can do. there was a lot of conversation in between when we were batting."

India were without their pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah for the third ODI and struggled with the inexperienced bowling attack at the Home of Cricket.

"When it comes to bowling, you got to understand these guys haven't played a lot of ODI cricket," Rohit said.

"You got to give them some time, hopefully we can learn from this game, take it into our stride, make sure when we come across a situation like that, we try and better ourselves.

"We have to move on from this and try and see how we can get better and what better we can do as a group, not just individiuals. Collective effort from the group is needed and that's what I think the team should be focussing on."

With the ICC Cricket World Cup upcoming next year and with the team trying to build the final 15 for the marquee event, Rohit seems unfazed by the noise surrounding his form and retirement.

"My job is with the bat, come and play, represent my country, represent my team. That's what I have been told to do since my debut so that's what I am going to do.

"The noise since I made my debut was there. And till the time I am going to stay here, it is always going to be there.

"So it doesn't really matter too much. What matters is what I do on the field, try and contribute to the success of the team. That's all my focus is right now. And let the noise be there. If there is no noise, there is no fun."