IND vs SA, 1st Test Day 2: 'Happy To Contribute To The Team', Expresses Mayank

After the second day’s play, Mayank interacted with the media personnel and revealed his mindset with which he achieved the feat

Opener Mayank Agarwal has been a prolific run-getter in the domestic cricket circuit in the last couple of years. Following his performances on home soil, he bagged the maiden call-up for Australia Tests where he contributed with a couple of half-centuries. Months after his international debut, finally came the innings when he notched up the triple figures for the first time in his international career. Moreover, Mayank brought up his maiden Test double hundred on the second day of the first Test against South Africa in Vizag. The 28-year-old ended up scoring 215, becoming the 23rd Indian to score a double century in Test cricket. After the second day’s play, Mayank interacted with the media personnel and revealed his mindset with which he achieved the feat. Here are the excerpts of the conversations from the post-match press conference: After your century, you started pushing yourself. What was going through your mind? I am extremely happy that I was able to contribute to the team. Being part of a side that is winning matches and tournaments is a privilege and I am happy to be part of the squad. Yeah, just having crossed that milestone it put some nerves to ease and then having played on this wicket for some time, gave me confidence. We had a good measure of their bowling. Once I got to a big score, we made sure that we put the pressure back on the bowlers, put away the loose balls. You have batted with three partners in five Tests so far. Is it difficult to adjust? Not really because every batsman who is playing is a quality batsman who has got runs. We have played with each other for a long time. Just makes it easy when there is clear communication. Little adjustments you have to do in different conditions. In Australia, there is more bounce so you have to stand a bit more upright. India like we saw ball started keeping a bit low. So these little adjustments you have to make in your game. What did skipper Kohli say to you after the knock? He congratulated me and the one thing he told me, the same thing he told me twice. He told me, 'listen you have scored 80, now bat through'. Even after I got hundred he said bat long. So it's about the team and the way they encourage and the environment that is created to go out there and perform. It's not about personal milestones; it's about getting those runs for the team. What did you and Rohit discuss at the middle? We were quite happy with the way we were batting and good that we're able to manipulate the field. They had started to bowl on the pads and it was nice to get a couple of boundaries so they can shift around players and talking about more ways how we can get runs. Risk-free runs. On Rohit missing double ton Form him to get such a big score first time opening the batting is tremendous. We all really enjoyed the way he bat. The way he took on the spinners, the way he paced his innings. It was great batting alongside him. it was good that we can get these big partnerships for India early on. It's nice obviously getting a 300-run partnership feels great.