Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra hailed Rohit Sharma after he scored a vital knock in the team’s five-wicket win against England in the fourth Test match at Ranchi to help them take an impregnable lead of 3-1 in the five-match series. While chasing 192, Rohit scored a fine knock of 55 runs off 81 balls to play a key role in India’s win.
Rohit added 84 runs with his opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored 37 runs to continue his rich form. After the opening partnership was broken, India lost four more quick wickets and found themselves at 120-5. However, Shubman Gill and Dhruv Jurel got India home as they added 72 runs for the sixth wicket.
Aakash Chopra said on YouTube Channel, “Rohit Sharma has scored more than 4000 Test runs and has played 100 innings. His numbers are good, but despite having scored a lot of Test centuries, this half-century was special because when India needed 192 runs in this match, I was convinced that Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal were extremely important.”
Chopra reckons India wouldn’t have been able to chase down the score if they were not given a good start by their openers.
“If they gave a good start, India could have won the match. However, God forbid, if something had gone wrong – that’s it, then these many runs wouldn’t have been scored,” Chopra said.
Chopra recalled that India had lost the opening Test match at Hyderabad as they failed to chase 231 despite it being a better pitch than Ranchi.
“We couldn’t chase in Hyderabad and there Tom Hartley was playing his first match, Jimmy Anderson wasn’t there, India had KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer as well and the pitch was much better than this Ranchi pitch,” he noted.
The renowned commentator lauded Rohit Sharma’s solid game against the England spinners.
“Rohit played extremely well in my opinion. Firstly, he hit a six off Jimmy Anderson’s bowling. He plays spin well because he is good at defending, stepping out, playing the sweep, and plays with soft hands. There is nothing that he does not do right against spin. Of course, he fell prey to Tom Hartley in the end.”
Rohit Sharma has been leading from the front and he will look to continue the good show. The fifth and final Test match will be played at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala from March 7
