Rohit Sharma hasn’t found his mojo both as a batter and as a captain so far in Australia, struggling to regain his form and get into the thick of things as a skipper. After missing the series opener in Perth, which India won, Rohit is back at the helm but continues to struggle to find his groove. Former Pakistan batter Basit Ali believes the sooner Rohit finds his touch, the better it will be for the visitors, who are struggling to save the pink-ball Test in Adelaide.
Rohit decided to bat in the middle order in Adelaide, allowing the settled opening pair of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal to continue. But neither could the openers repeat their Perth show in the second Test, nor Rohit could do anything of note with the bat.
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Rohit’s poor form with the bat since the home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand continued. Coming to Australia at the end of his paternity leave following the birth of his second child, Rohit had scored just 91 runs in six innings of the three-Test series against the Kiwis, which India lost 0-3.
In Adelaide, he could only score 3 and 6 in his two innings.
Besides pointing at the flaw of Indian batters, including Rohit, who are going for the ball instead of playing late to tackle the swing, Basit was critical of Rohit’s captaincy on the second day’s play.
He said Rohit missed the trick in the first session on Saturday, when he got Bumrah to bowl just four overs.
“40 minute mei sirf chaar over ka spell karvaya Bumrah se (Bumrah bowled just a four-over spell in 40 minutes). He should have been bowled for two more overs. Travis Head had just come in, he might have dismissed him. Fitness I don’t know, workload I don’t believe in. If he could bowl four overs, then two more from him were possible. That was the mistake,” said Basit.
Travis Head punishes India with a counter-attacking hundred in Adelaide Test
Bumrah also had an injury scare later in the day, when he went down in the middle of his over holding his thigh and the physio came out to have a look at the Indian bowling spearhead.
Basit felt not bowling Bumrah when Head had just come in allowed Australia to settle and he went on to score a counter-attacking 140 to put his team in the driver’s seat.
“Head could counter-attack. Why? Because Bumrah was taken off the attack. He played big shots against Harshit Rana, Nitish (Reddy), (Ravichandran) Ashwin. He got set because he got time to play his game, more so because Bumrah wasn’t bowling. This was the factor that allowed Australia to strengthen their grip on the match,” the 53-year-old Basit analysed.
He also believed Rohit was not proactive when Indian bowlers were mostly bowling outside the off-stump or drifting towards the leg-side, especially against Marnus Labuschagne.
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“Australian bowlers are forcing Indian batters to play, whereas the Indian bowlers were bowling wide mostly and they kept leaving those deliveries…That was the mistake in captaincy, and it was not good. You have to dismiss batters with your captaincy as well; we haven’t seen that Rohit Sharma so far,” Basit continued.
While India have their backs to the wall at 128 for 5 in their second innings, Basit feels a big partnership from Rishabh Pant (28*) and Nitish (15*) can still give India a total to bowl at.
“If Pant can make a hundred and Nitish 70-odd, and India play out two sessions, leaving Australia to play under lights chasing 150-odd, then Bumrah and Siraj will blow them away. But that situation is quite far away at the moment. First they have to erase the remaining lead of 29 runs.”
