Former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar questioned skipper Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s shot selection against Pakistan in the team’s opening game of the Asia Cup. While chasing 148 runs, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were dismissed for 12 and 35 runs respectively.
However, many cricket experts slammed both of these veteran batters for their shot selection. Rohit Sharma was struggling to get going in his innings and he smashed a six against Mohammad Nawaz before once again deciding to take on the left-arm orthodox spinner in the same over.
But the right-hander couldn’t get his timing right and holed out to long off. Subsequently, Virat Kohli didn’t look convincing when he charged Mohammad Nawaz and chipped the ball to long off. Both the experienced batters were dismissed in quick succession which left India in a spot of bother in the run-chase.
In fact, Kohli also had the rub of the green on his side as he was dropped by Fakhar Zaman at the second slip when he was yet to get off the mark.
“Rahul played just one ball, so you can’t judge anything from that. Rohit and Kohli had the opportunity to bat for some time, they got runs. All these earlier times when people were talking about Kohli’s form, I kept on saying that he is not having any luck.
“Today, he had a lot of luck, drop catches, a lot of inside edges, which went so close to the stumps, he had the luck. But he did capitalize on it and played some very fine shots,” Gavaskar was quoted as saying to India Today.
“But one had expected that with the kind of start that he had, he should have got around 60-70. He got out immediately after Rohit got out. Both of them got out to forgettable shots. At that stage, those shots were not necessary as the asking rate wasn’t 19 or 20 for them to attempt sixes at that stage,” Gavaskar stated.
“It was required for them to get going, get to 70-80 and then maybe go for the big shots. That should be learning from this game,” he added.
Both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli got off to a start but they could not convert them into substantial scores. There is no doubt that India will want their two veteran batters to be at their best if they are to defend their title in the Asia Cup.
India will take on Hong Kong in their second game of the tournament on Wednesday.
