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Rohit has only managed to score 122 runs in his last six Test matches for India.
Rohit Sharma’s childhood coach wants India captain to play domestic cricket. (Picture Credit: AP)
Rohit Sharma was horribly out of form in India’s recently concluded five-match Test series against Australia. The 37-year-old right-handed batter played three matches but was only able to score 31 runs in five innings. Rohit’s poor show with the bat in the high-voltage series, where a place in the World Test Championship (WTC) final was also at stake, invited a lot of criticism for him. Many fans and former greats of the game felt that Rohit’s time in Test cricket was over after he ‘opted out’ of the fifth Test in Sydney due to poor form.
But the right-handed batter from Mumbai, who made his Test debut in November 2013 against the West Indies in Kolkata, dismissed the news of his retirement from red-ball cricket on Saturday, January 4.
Even though Rohit has made clear that he still wants to play Test cricket, there are still question marks over his place in the side.
Amid doubts over Rohit’s place in the side, his childhood coach, Dinesh Lad, has suggested that the veteran of 67 Tests should play a couple of domestic matches to prepare for Test cricket.
According to Lad, Rohit’s priorities are winning the WTC and ODI World Cup for India.
“I think Rohit has only two goals: first, to win the World Test Championship and second, to win the ODI World Cup. If he wanted, he would have retired from all formats (after the T20 World Cup title), but he only retired from T20 cricket. He is not the only cricketer who was struggling to score runs. He should play one or two domestic games to prepare for Test matches,” Lad was quoted as saying by IANS.
“Because of T20 cricket, the mindset of batters has changed. He is a technically sound cricketer, and against England last year he was scoring good runs. If we win, people call Rohit the best captain, but when we lose, people say he doesn’t know captaincy,” he added.
India, which failed to qualify for the third WTC final in a row, will next play a red-ball series in June against England. The five-match Test series between India and England is scheduled to start on June 20 in Leeds, and it will be interesting to see if Rohit manages to retain his place after scoring only 122 runs in the last six Tests.
