“If we can bowl the channel line, it would be good. Batting won't be easy here. We are confident of defending the target.”
Yashasvi Jaiswal wanted to be more consistent on his first tour of England but drew immense satisfaction from his second-innings ton on a “spicy” pitch at The Oval to help India set a massive 374-run target in the fifth Test.
Jaiswal ended the series with 411 runs at an average of 41.10 including two centuries and as many fifties.
In the initial phase, he was peppered with plenty of short balls into the rib cage, before the southpaw had his fair share of struggle against Jofra Archer at Lord's.
The Indian opener's returns in 10 innings -- scores of 101, 4, 87, 28, 13, 0, 58, 0, 2, and 118 -- suggest he was not among the most consistent batters but Jaiswal did leave a lasting impact after a decent run in Australia.
“I think I wanted to do more. I wanted to make my innings bigger than that. So, I could have achieved something else. But it's okay,” he told the media on Saturday.
“I was trying very hard for that and I was enjoying it. Whenever I go out there, I think, as long as I can bat, I enjoy batting as well,” added Jaiswal, who rode his luck to complete his sixth Test hundred on Saturday.
Jaiswal also got a word of advice from his former captain Rohit Sharma, who was watching the game from the stands.
“He told me to hang in there and bat long.”
Talking more about the takeaways from the series, Jaiswal said: “It's all about how I fight. Always, the mentality is to go out there and fight it out and enjoy.”
“Because in the end, (and) as I tell myself that it's the game and we need to enjoy the game. That is very important. With that, we should have fun.
“I am proud of myself and all my teammates. We want fun. We want some battle in the middle. That is the fun. That's why you play Test cricket,” he said.
Jaiswal, who was dropped thrice in the second innings, said England won't have it easy on Day 4 chasing a record 374-run target.
“The wicket was a little spicy. I was enjoying batting. I was enjoying it a lot,” he said.
“I expect that in England. Mentally, I was ready and I was just enjoying. I knew what shot I'm going to play on this surface,” said Jaiswal who shared a 107-run partnership with nightwatchman Akash Deep in the morning session.
“If we can bowl the channel line, it would be good. Batting won't be easy here. We are confident of defending the target.”
England chased a record 378 against India at Edgbaston three years ago and more recently did not have much difficulty in chasing 371 in the series opener at Leeds.
Josh Tongue, who took a five-wicket haul in India's second innings, said the batters would be going after the target despite losing Zak Crawley at stroke of stumps.
“We are pretty chilled, not overthinking about it. I don't see why we can't chase down these runs. How we play as a batting unit, it is very positive,” said Tongue adding that batting became easier on Day 3 after the use of heavy roller.
“The first two days it did quite a bit from good length. Heavy roller made the difference. The odd ball still did something and jumped off length in the final session.”
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