Former Indian Test opener Aakash Chopra raised concerns after skipper Rohit Sharma was dismissed for a nine-ball duck in the first innings of the second Test match against New Zealand at Pune on Thursday. After New Zealand was dismissed for 259, Rohit Sharma was squared up by visitors’ veteran pacer Tim Southee.
Chopra noted that this is not the first time when Rohit has been dismissed in such a fashion. Rohit played down the wrong line and had to pay the prize as India finished the opening day at 16-1, trailing by 243 runs.
Rohit hasn’t been in the best of forms in the recent past and has failed to lead from the front in the red-ball format. Southee dismissed Rohit for the 16th time in International cricket.
“Of course, Tim Southee has dismissed him twice in this series, so it will seem like it’s a problem against him. However, he got out similarly to Taskin (Ahmed). Remember, it was a similar ball, it was the Chennai ground, second innings and the catch went behind,” Aakash Chopra said on Colors Cineplex.
“There also we said that the ball was very good. If we compare with that, this ball didn’t move that much sideways. This has not happened for the first time and has happened more in the recent past,” the former India opener added.
Chopra observed that Rohit’s front foot is remaining planted on the crease and that is causing trouble for him while facing the pacers.
“I think the issue, which Rohit will have to address himself, is that the front foot is not going anywhere. You are just standing in your crease and when the front foot is stuck and the back foot doesn’t move, there can be only one reaction to the ball, that is your body will open up. When your body opens up like that, it looks bad as well,” he elaborated.
Rohit scored a decent knock of 52 runs in the second innings of the Bengaluru Test but Chopra feels Southee’s ball was made to look better than it was because of the batter’s technical issue.
“So he will have to address this, as he did in Bengaluru’s second innings. He was taking his foot slightly more forward there as compared to the first innings. You might see him doing that here as well in the second innings but when he got out, the ball looked better than it actually was because the body had opened up,” Chopra observed.
