India captain Rohit Sharma is struggling for runs. The right-handed batter, who came out in the middle at No.6 in the previous Tests against Australia in Adelaide and Brisbane, returned to his original opening slot in the Melbourne contest to change his fortunes around. However, the result was the same: he lasted just five balls in the first innings of the Boxing Day Test.
Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar has now said that the move to have Rohit open was unfair to KL Rahul, as the latter showed great skill and composure while opening in the first three Tests.
Rohit Sharma managed just three runs in the first innings of the Melbourne Test before being dismissed by Australia captain Pat Cummins. The 37-year-old was in no control as he tried to play a pull shot, and in the end, he handed a simple catch to Scott Boland.
Manjrekar, without mincing his words, said that Indian cricket needs to get out of the VIP culture and think about what is right for the Indian team. It is important to mention that during commentary on Day 2, Manjrekar cited Sachin Tendulkar’s example of not retiring after the 2011 World Cup as he wanted to scale the barrier of 100 international centuries.
“It’s a comment that I think I’ve made before as well. I mean, this is something that happens a lot in the Indian cricket culture. A big-name player just to get him on track, we often sacrifice a lesser or a smaller name, and it doesn’t ever make cricketing logic, or it’s never best for the team. KL Rahul has been India’s most consistent batter. He stitched a record partnership in Australia with Yashasvi Jaiswal,” Manjrekar told ESPNCricinfo.
“Just because Rohit Sharma is out of form and is a senior player just to get him back into form and give him something different, you can’t be making these kinds of changes that just reflect poorly on Indian cricket as to what is a priority for Indian cricket, and it’s happened in the past as well with Tendulkar. It’s time India moved away from, you know, the big-name players. Just clearing up all the space like VIP arrives, you know, so that just wasn’t the right call and KL Rahul didn’t get too affected by it. It was just unfair on him,” he added.
‘Feel for Rohit Sharma’
Sanjay Manjrekar, however, also sympathised with Rohit Sharma, who has scored just 152 runs in his last 14 innings. The right-handed batter’s lost score of fifty came against New Zealand in the Bengaluru Test.
“You can see that he’s going through a rough patch, and now you’ve got to start feeling for it. I’m trying to get into his head because he’s gone in thinking, ‘Okay, this is a page where the ball that is pitched up is not moving as much’. So he felt that he could survive with that particular link. But he also must have realised that if the ball is slightly short,” said Manjrekar.
“I still have to play my natural game. Otherwise, you’re stuck defending, and then one ball gets you. So the first ball that was just slightly short in length is the one that he picked, it wasn’t the right length nor was it the right line when it finished because moved a little and that was a shot that he knew at the moment. He played it. He was just completely out of place with that shot,” he added.
Coming back to the Melbourne Test, India are in a spot of bother, after being reduced to 164/5. The visitors are still trailing by 310 runs with Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja at the crease.