Captain Rohit Sharma returned to the top of the order in the Boxing Day Test for the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024, moving KL Rahul to number, as the management benched Shubman Gill, accommodating in the playing eleven Washington Sundar.
It was assumed that Rohit, who was not finding runs in Tests, would come back to form at his original spot. However, the second day of the fourth Test turned out to be a reflection of disappointment with that assumption, after Australia had managed to post a mammoth 474 in their first innings. Rohit played a very hack shot and off this very first over of the Indian innings, lost his wicket to his counterpart Australian.
Former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar came down heavily on the change in India batting line up. Speaking with ESPN Cricinfo, the former batter said that this was not a fair thing for KL Rahul who put an impressive show as an opener in the last three matches.
“This is something that happens a lot in the Indian cricket culture. There is 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,” Majrekar commented.
KL Rahul has been their most consistent batter. He stitched a record partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal in Australia. You cannot expect making these kinds of changes just because Rohit Sharma is out of form and senior and is just to get him back into see that difference to his batting. It does reflect poorly as an Indian cricket as to what-in Indian cricket, these things have happened in the past too with Tendulkar. Just wasn’t the right call, and KL Rahul, although didn’t get affected much by it, was just unfair, he added.
A familiar collapse followed Jaiswal’s run-out against India, who suddenly stared down the barrel at 164/5 in the face of a menacing Australia. But Jaiswal, who was quite fluent during his 118-ball stay that yielded 82 runs, was well short of his crease after a mix-up with Virat Kohli (36) while attempting a quick single. That proved to be a much-needed break that could well decide the outcome.
So, India still trail behind by 310 runs judging by Australia’s 474 first-innings score. They want 111 runs more to avoid the follow-on at the end of day 2, which should never have been a consideration on this placid batting track.
