After the veteran player and India’s former head coach Ravi Shastri, who knows something about winning Test rubbers in Australia himself, told Indian captain Rohit Sharma that ‘he should open the batting again, if he has to throw the first punch’ on this confident opponent. Shastri served as team director in 2017-18 when India won their maiden Test series in Australia. He carried the flag for the side when the tourists rallied back brilliantly to beat the hosts in the last tour in 2020-21 as the head coach.
The experiment of Rohit in at number six did not help India and ended with bitter loss by 10 wickets in the second Test at Adelaide leaving the five-match contest at 1-1 and everything to win in what Shastri feels might determine the outcome of the series.
“That’s where he’s (Rohit) been at his best over the last eight or nine years”, quoted Shastri by ‘The Age’.
“It’s neither coming through the gate to set the world on fire – it can – but that is the outpost which is better for him… If he has to do damage, if he has to throw the first punch, that’s the best place from where he can do it.” Rohit went into the Pink-ball Test against Australia last week with only one fifty in his last 10 innings – a stat tainted further by Shastri’s interesting yet timely suggestion against changing the opening partnership of Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul after the two managed success in that position while backing Rohit to bat in the middle-order.
“He is – that person has only one winner between he and the host country,” says Shastri.
I truly believe whoever wins this Test match will win the series. I have no doubt about that at all. So it becomes extremely, extremely important that India should get the balance right, as Australia have got their confidence back,” said the former captain.
The victory of 2021 is one of the greater triumphs in the annals of Indian cricket and Shastri, who was speaking at the inaugural annual Usman Khawaja Foundation Lunch at the Gabba, mentioned the unity shown by the players amid restrictions due to COVID-19 as a key ingredient in contributing to the historic win.
There are very few bowlers seen in this entire Test, however, bowlers must have played the first Test match for you at least five, while the last Test may have been played by the same five bowlers. That sums it well; it’s like Australia playing without these five bowlers in the last Test of the series; it’s a different ball game. Plus you didn’t have quite a few batsmen as well; so it’s a tribute to the players.
A coach can only do so much from behind the scenes, and at the end it is the players who have to step out and do their job; and they did it very much magnificently. Four years ago, after getting bundled out for their lowest Test total of 36 in Adelaide, India staged a glorious comeback to win two out of the remaining three matches and emerge winners As he recalled, Shastri ended with a reminiscence of a conversation put between both Rishabh Pant and Shubman Gill, as the last man stood in the list of wicket-takers, being helped by Gill towards some valuable advice just moments after the former’s dismissal, as they were taking on the aggressive approach of scoring some 140-odd runs in the last session to shock the hosts in their home fortress known until then-as Gabba.
“I will never forget it,” Shastri said.
“We had two different change rooms because of COVID. Last session, 140 runs to get. I went down from the coaches’ room to have a chat with either Rishabh or (Chateshwar) Pujara. When I was about to reach the toilet, I heard a conversation between Gill and Pant.
“This is 71 overs bowled and Gill had got out and it was 91-they were the only two youngest in the side, 21 and 22.”…
