Legendary Australia batter Matthew Hayden feels Rohit Sharma needs to bring back the positive batting intent to regain his mojo. The Indian skipper has been struggling with form in red-ball cricket and facing scrutiny for his struggles against pacers. He also sacrificed his opening slot for KL Rahul in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy and demoted himself to the number 6 spot – which isn’t alien to him as he made his Test debut batting at the same position.
However, the decision backfired on Adelaide as he failed to register double-digit scores and was dismissed for 3 and 6.
Hayden shared an important piece of advice for Rohit, who he thinks is a free-flowing batter, but it is missing from his batting in recent times.
“When I think of Rohit Sharma, I think of a free-scoring batsman. You look at those double hundreds in one day cricket, his magnificence in the short formats…” Hayden told Star Sports.
In his last 12 innings, 10 of which came during India’s home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand, Rohit has scored 142 runs at an average of 11.83, with a solitary half-century.
Hayden advised that Rohit defending the ball won’t solve the problem for him as his natural game is to bat with positive intent and energy.
“For purely Rohit Sharma’s sake, he needs to have a great intent and energy about him. When I think back to Adelaide’s first game here in a long time, he was just a little sluggish. I’d be saying to him as his partner, ‘I don’t really want to see you defend the ball here’. I want him to be really reactive to the ball, really up for the fight, because his natural game will flow. Energy and intent will take that front foot a lot further towards the ball,” he added.
‘I’d have those as two maybe trigger words for Rohit Sharma’: Hayden
The Aussie legend asserted that intent and energy should be the two trigger words for Rohit to get his preparations right and regain the rhythm.
“Rohit, what I want you to do, my brother, is play with great energy and intent, and I’d have those as two maybe trigger words for him to think about in his preparation,” he added.
India were 51 for four at stumps, trailing Australia’s first-innings total by 394 runs, as play was abandoned nearly an hour early due to bad light at the Gabba. Rahul was unbeaten on 33 with India skipper Rohit Sharma, who once again came out to bat at number 6, yet to open his account.