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Rohit Sharma had a forgettable outing in the recent Test series against New Zealand as he managed 91 runs from six innings.
Rohit Sharma will hope to get back among the runs in Australia. (BCCI Photo)
With 588 runs from 11 Tests in 2024 so far, Rohit Sharma has been far from his best and is under close scrutiny for an alarming dip in form. His returns in Test cricket, especially in the last five matches have been quite poor with the India captain managing just 133 runs from 10 innings. With the Australia Test tour upcoming, his form his a cause of worry for India as they eye a hat-trick of series wins Down Under.
Four out of six times, Rohit was dismissed by a seamer during the New Zealand Tests and that could potentially raise a question over his spot at the top of the batting order in Australia where ball is expected to move. Former Pakistan spinner Danish Kaneria feels that the Indian team management needs to make a call on whether their skipper is still “comfortable opening” and if not, should swap places with their current No. 3 Shubman Gill.
“Just see if Rohit Sharma is still comfortable opening or if he should come in one-down and change his order a little bit because he has been struggling with the track in India. In the recent series, Southee got him out twice, and the ball will move more over there in Australia, so you have to see how you go with that,” Kaneria told The Times of India.
“The Indian top order should be (Yashasvi) Jaiswal and Shubman as openers, Rohit coming one-down, and Virat (Kohli) two-down. They have to manage that. (Gautam) Gambhir needs to manage the long Indian batting line-up, as (Ravichandran) Ashwin and (Ravindra) Jadeja are there, so they have a deep batting line-up,” he added.
The repeated batting collapses played a major role in India being suffering a 0-3 whitewash at the hands of New Zealand at home, a result that also put an end to their winning streak of 18 straight Test series at home.
Not just Rohit, the form of Indian top-order has been iffy and should they fail to fire in unison, Kaneria feels, it will put extra pressure on the lower order.
“Indian batters need to click – that’s the only concern. If the bowlers take wickets, then the batters need to click. A Test is won by bowlers, so Indian batting needs to click as their top order, where Rohit and Kohli are struggling with runs. They have to click and take responsibility because it goes down to the wire for Pant to take responsibility. Sarfaraz (Khan) is doing well, but the pressure from the top order not clicking puts pressure down the line,” Kaneria said.
