Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra believes Rohit Sharma is not scoring as many runs as he should in the ongoing Asia Cup. The Indian skipper struggled to get going in the team’s opening match of the tournament against Pakistan.
Rohit trudged to 12 runs off 18 balls and played a poor shot to get out. In fact, the veteran batter had failed to find any kind of timing against Pakistan. Furthermore, the right-hander could only manage 21 runs off 13 balls against Hong Kong on Wednesday at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
In fact, Rohit has scored only one T20 fifty in 2022, including the IPL matches as he hasn’t been consistent in the shortest format of the game.
Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel, “The start was extremely slow. Rohit Sharma got out once again. This must be noted that he has just one 50-plus score this entire year, including the IPL matches. He is not scoring as many runs as he should. It was an odd dismissal because the ball hit high up on the bat.”
On the other hand, KL Rahul, who has recently made a return to the national team after a long hiatus, struggled to find any impetus in his knock. He meandered to 36 runs off 39 balls and failed to score at even a run-a-ball.
“The wickets were not falling but KL Rahul was going close to run-a-ball and then he got out. You felt that the sword is rusted, he is not playing with that freedom.”
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli was also scoring at almost run-a-ball at the start. Kohli was able to change gears at the fag end of the innings and scored 59 from 44 balls.
“Virat Kohli was also going slightly ahead of run-a-ball, it is not that he was going at a strike rate of 150. If the innings had gotten over in the same fashion, the Indian team would have reached 160-165, which might have also not been chased, but it wasn’t really par for the course for Team India against a team like Hong Kong.”
The renowned commentator added that it was not a dominating knock from Virat Kohli but the game time will eventually help him.
“We were all waiting for Virat Kohli’s runs and eventually, the runs were scored as well. I will not say that it was a dominating knock because it was not. Eventually, there is a value for the half-century. Overall, Suryakumar Yadav played a big part in that partnership, he allowed Kohli to take his time.”
India was not that convincing with the bat if Suryakumar Yadav’s knock is not taken into consideration. Yadav scored a quickfire knock of 68 off just 26 balls to help the team post 192 runs on the board
