MS Dhoni reveals message to top-scorer Rohit Sharma following mid-match injury

New Delhi: Spinners orchestrated a terrific 190-run victory for India after batsmen had made them comfortable with a total of 269 runs on board.

MS Dhoni held special praise for bowlers, branding their performance as one of the best he has ever seen.

Dhoni also hailed his deputy Virat Kohli for his 76-ball 65-run knock, which according to him set the platform for the 269 for six on a difficult wicket.

"I think Virat (Kohli) was superb with the bat. We got off to a decent start."

The Indian skipper also revealed the message to Rohit Sharma, who got injured in the match but still continued to play and was India's top scorer.

When Rohit (Sharma) got injured, the message was if you think you can't carry on, just play your shots. Once he (Kohli) got out, Rohit gave us some momentum. We felt it was a difficult wicket to freely rotate. That's when we decided to play the big shots. We felt 270 was par-plus but considering the dew factor that was necessary," he said.

Dhoni said the five-match series provided the Indian team management the perfect platform to test some youngsters.

"Glad that we could rest some key players, with some big Test series coming up. I feel the batsmen down the order like Kedar Jadhav, Axar Patel and Manish Pandey gained a lot of experience.

"It is difficult to get the complete product in international cricket so the new players should be given time to develop," he said.

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson termed their today's performance as "terrible".

"Without a doubt the total was a lot above par. India have played really well throughout the series. It's very hard to look past today's performance for us, you expect to put up a good performance whether we win or lose and today we were terrible," Williamson said.

(With Agency inputs)