Things have been very wrong for Rohit Sharma here in Down Under in the Test series. The Indian captain continues to be criticized about his captaincy as well as runs that have dried up in this series. Ever since he returned to the Indian camp here in Australia, the Indians have not been able to win a single game during this ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy face-off. His captaincy traits did not provide him with good dividends, which made him look out of depth in the field.
At the same time, he continues to disappoint with the bat. Rohit had 6, 3, and 10 on the stat sheet in his first three innings batting in the middle order. After being drawn into a series of low scores, he returned to the top of the order in order to rediscover his rhythm, the bounce hardly came. Opening the batting, Rohit was caught in the first over of the Indian innings for just three runs in the first over of the innings from Melbourne after mistiming his classic pull shot.
Former chief selector MSK Prasad, who was calling the game on the second day of the Boxing Day Test, could not stop himself when India failed to strike with the second new ball against Australia. He questioned Rohit’s captaincy and poor batting. “The series headed into it, we had a 3-match series heading into this one against New Zealand. It was pathetic. Never has it happened in Indian cricket that we are bowled out thrice in a row after consecutive losses, and Rohit was pretty much sorted out. No runs were scored in that series by him at all. And here, he hasn’t played the first game. Bumrah was leading the team pretty well. So, he comes after this very long continuous failure,” Prasad said on air.
The former chief selector underlined how the uninspired ideas of Rohit harm the cricketer and how his flow of run is clearly not helping the team with it.
“I personally feel that it has got a direct impact. If the captain comes into some sort of form, that has a direct impact on the side. And he comes after a series of failures and that has clearly shown in the way he led the side,” Prasad said.
“He has not been proactive on many occasions. If you see, in this Test match itself, he had 11 overs bowled by Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah, especially when Sam [Konstas] was going hammer and tongs. That has been the case with his captaincy. He has been struggling with both the captain and his captaincy,” he added.
Rohit hasn’t had a great run after winning T20 World Cup in the Caribbean. India just lost a bilateral ODI series to Sri Lanka after 28 years. This is followed by what would be India’s first whitewash at home in 12 years with a crushing series defeat to New Zealand.
