The performance of the Indian batsmen is the most worrisome thing as the team readies for the flagship five-match Test series against Australia which is the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Mark Taylor, a former Australian captain, has been among the first to observe that India’s leap from players such as Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane to those such as Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal has not been smooth owing to the poor form of captain Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Hence young players have also been under pressure.
“They (India) have had this injection of youth that they had to. They’ve moved on (Cheteshwar) Pujara and they’ve moved on (Ajinkya) Rahane and are left with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma their two best players. But all of a sudden they’ve had this shaky period and whose runs you will not expect out of their bats,” Taylor explained.
“Your best players need to make the bulkier runs and for the last twelve to eighteen months, that has not been the case,” opined Taylor.
Jaiswal and Gill have scored 1,119 runs and 806 runs respectively in the year of 2024, as compared to Rohit Sharma who has scored only 588.
In the middle order, both Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan have performed better than Virat Kohli in terms of runs scored even after playing fewer innings
In 2024 Rohit averaged only 29.40 while for Kohli it was a poor 22.72.
Australia vs India, Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024/25
India and Australia rank first and second movies in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle table respectively, despite this series being very critical for either side’s progression to the final. These are the last five Tests for India in the cycle and Australia will complete two more in a series against Sri Lanka.
India has triumphed in the last four Border-Gavaskar Trophy series by 2-1 margins each, but unlike the previous series, India are under pressure going to this series having suffered a Test series whitewash of 0-3 at home to New Zealand.
