Former Australian captain Mark Taylor shared his surprise after Indian management claimed that Rohit Sharma has opted out of the fifth Test match against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar series. Taylor said that the captain of the country never opts out and Rohit has been dropped from the team after his mundane form.
Rohit hasn’t been able to lead from the front in the ongoing Test series as he has returned with scores of 3, 6, 10, 3, and 9 and thus aggregated only 31 runs at an average of 6.20. Furthermore, Rohit has managed a solitary fifty in last 15 Test innings and he hasn’t been at his best with the bat.
Speaking to Triple M Cricket, Mark Taylor said on Rohit Sharma’s omission, “To be honest, that’s once again sidestepping the point. The bottom line is the captain of the country does not opt-out for a final deciding Test match of a series. There is no doubt he has been dropped and I don’t know why they just don’t say it.”
“He’s been dropped. It doesn’t mean he is dropped forever. It means he is missing this Test match because he has been out of form. That’s not a crime. That’s unfortunately professional sport. That’s whats happened and Shubman Gill comes back in.”
On the other hand, Jasprit Bumrah is leading in Rohit Sharma’s absence. Bumrah said Rohit took a selfless decision and decided to drop himself for the team’s sake.
Bumrah said on toss, “Our captain has shown leadership by opting to rest in this game. That shows there’s a lot of unity in this team. There’s no selfishness. Whatever is in the teams best interest we are looking to do that. Two changes, Rohit has opted to rest and Akash Deep is injured so Prasidh comes in.”
After electing to bat first, India is 120-6 in the third session of the opening day at the SCG.
