Rohit Sharma, the captain of India, continues to receive vicious attacks on his perplexing decision-making and selection policies in the Melbourne Test. His latest decision to experiment with the return of Washington Sundar in India’s XI for the Boxing Day Test came at the cost of Shubman Gill. This decision has already generated several questions about his decision-making. Rohit’s other decisions concerning the use of his bowlers or the match-ups used by the bowlers against disparate Australian batters were not able to bring out their best from India’s bowling attack for the first two days. Some of the decisions were publicly criticized by the legends Suni Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri.
During the second day of his commentary stint in the Melbourne Test, Shastri had asked Rohit and head coach Gambhir regarding the two spinners included in the playing XI as they didn’t keep that trust up with them.
“Why did you take 2 spinners if you had to bowl them after 40 overs? In Melbourne, spinners should always bowl in 1 or 1 and a half overs. I didn’t understand why Jadeja and Sundar bowled after 40 overs,” Shastri wondered.
The former head coach of Australia felt that Bumrah should have been opening the bowling for the team on the second day but came on to bowl the third over instead.
“India should’ve started with Bumrah but Siraj bowled the first over. With SIraj’s confidence being low, it’s important to handle him well,” he asserted.
Shastri questioned not only Rohit’s bowling changes but also his field placements.
He said: “You see, Mitchell Starc has come and you have long on and long off fielders. At least put one of them up.”
Sunil Gavaskar’s looked wrathful when, in the middle, Indo’s bowling failed to impress. Except for Jasprit Bumrah, no pacer managed to take the challenge posed by Gavaskar regarding the new ball cricket, which he said was ‘wasted’ by Indian pacers.
“Pretty awful bowling really. If you were to bowl a bouncer, you’d put it as high as the helmet’s badge, not at the waist. I am very disappointed, I preach against that too. A great mis-wasted new ball. Aakash Deep, it seemed, has run to all corners of an unlimited ground. The Indians have proven less than useful in the field as well,” said the original little master on-air.
Later Rohit also opened the batting with India while in-form KL Rahul was pushed down the order but the skipper could manage just 3 runs before exiting.
