'Why pick on India?': Ravi Shastri hits out at critics for questioning India's overseas form

Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has hit out at his team's detractors and media, who question India's form in Test cricket away from home, stating many teams in the past, including Australia and South Africa have struggled to do the same.

Ahead of India's much-awaited tour of Australia, which begins with a T20I series on Novemeber 21, Shastri was questioned by some sections of media over Virat Kohli & co's failure to win a Test series abroad against the top teams.

But the Indian head coach hit bak at them for their selective criticism. He said, "You have got to learn from your mistakes. When you go overseas and when you look at teams that travel around now, there aren't too many sides (that travel well). Australia did for some time in the 90's and during the turn of century. South Africa did it for a while and other than these two,in the last five-six years, you tell me which team has traveled well. Why pick on India?" 

Prior to the their tour 'Down Under', India had visited South Africa and England in 2018. While the results against the two nations in the limited-overs were very encouraging, Kohli and co. succumbed in both the Test series', despite promising displays.

Against South Africa, they were beaten 2-1 in the three-match Test series. And it was followed by a 4-1 drubbing in the hands of England. Yet, the head coach and captain have both stressed on a number of occasions that the team is very much improving, and close to getting the result.

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On the day when the Indian team left for their tour against Australia, Kohli had stated that his team wasn't doing much wrong, but only failing to hit the mark on the important periods.

"There were a lot of things we sat down and discussed after England, [about] what went wrong. To be honest, we all felt there was not much that went wrong. Whatever was not right was very extreme also. We played good cricket, but the mistakes were also very extreme, that's why we lost that many number of games rather than wining those moments and winning the games," he told media.