BRISBANE: Australia captain Pat Cummins was off for a mini victory lap and the celebration, with some spot hops, even got Mitchell Marsh going as the hosts saw the back of Rohit Sharma. The Indian captain dragged himself off the field and left his gloves in front of the dugout before entering the dressing room.
It was his fourth consecutive failure on Australian soil and the right-hander never looked comfortable against Cummins who was in the middle of a fantastic spell in the morning session. Ball-after-ball, the seamer kept pinging the good-length spot and made subtle use of different angles to keep the batter guessing. With Rohit on strike, a short-ball was not too far away either and the Australian captain fired one in the 24th over.
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Just like Virat Kohli seemingly finds it hard to resist playing at deliveries outside off, Rohit never misses an opportunity to have a swing against short-pitch stuff. He went after that Cummins delivery but failed to make any connection. The next delivery was a perfect follow-up as he returned to the good length and got the ball to straighten just enough from the incoming angle to find Rohit’s edge.
It was the epitome of a nothing shot. The feet went nowhere close to the ball and Rohit pushed at the delivery with just his hands. He got into no position and was very loose with that push. A nothing push. The Indian captain didn’t even wait for the ball to come close to him, under his eyeline, and instead chose to use his hands to get to it.
The Australian seamers – Mitchell Starc and Cummins – were bowling well in tandem but a tighter approach could have allowed Rohit to cash in during the period the oldish kookaburra stops doing its tricks. The pitch was baking under the sun and even a watchful 40-45 minutes could have allowed him to put the past horrors behind him. The hosts were already a bowler short as Josh Hazlewood picked up a calf strain and was ruled out for the remainder of the Test.
It meant there were some release overs coming their way but Rohit never lasted that long to make most of that period.
Since landing in Australia, there has been a clear lack of confidence in his approach and the baggage of past failures is clearly weighing his batting down, and also affecting his underwhelming captaincy.
Rohit has been a royal disappointment in his last few Tests and has managed just one half-century in last 13 innings. Majority of those failures came as an opener but even the move down the order, to accommodate an in-form KL Rahul at top of the order, hasn’t made any difference to his returns.
Scott Boland got him with an indipper in the first innings of pink-ball Test, Cummins castled him with a beauty in the second innings and more disappointment could be in store on the remainder of the tour if the captain doesn’t tighten up.
Rohit doesn’t need to look too far to get some inspiration as the man he vacated his opening spot for is batting like a dream!
