Rohit Sharma Can’t Afford To Throw His Wicket: Ricky Ponting

Jan 17, 2021 at 11:49 AM

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Rohit Sharma Can’t Afford To Throw His Wicket: Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting, former Australian cricketer reckons that opener Rohit Sharma can’t afford to throw his wicket away if he wishes to make a name for himself in Test cricket.

The 33-year-old Rohit Sharma had gotten his eyes in, scoring 44 runs at a strike-rate of about 60 in the first innings of the fourth Test at The Gabba in Brisbane. His knock was laced with six fours off 74 balls before he perished.

Ricky Ponting
Ricky Ponting. Photo Credit: Getty Images.

Ricky Ponting: Rohit Sharma Plays Aggressively But He Must Not Throw His Wicket Away Like That

But then Rohit Sharma perished to spinner Nathan Lyon while trying to go for a lofted shot, as Mitchell Starc took the catch. It also brought to an end a promising-looking 49-run partnership between him and Cheteshwar Pujara. The shot drew a lot of criticism from a number of experts.

Nick Knight, former England opener said Rohit Sharma should look at reining in his aggressive instinct until he gets a big score as a Test opener away from home. Sunil Gavaskar, former legendary opener and skipper is impressed with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill and has backed the pair to be India’s long-term option at the top of the order in Test cricket.

Ricky Ponting also came down hard on Rohit Sharma, saying that the Nagpur-born has to show a bit of responsibility. The veteran Ricky Ponting stated that the opening batsman fell prey to the trap set for him in the first place by the Australians.

Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma- Photo Credit Getty Images.

“It’s easy to say that’s the way he plays but you’ve got to be better than that,” Ponting was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia.

“If you want to be a really good, consistent Test match batsman you can’t just be going and throwing what could have been such promising innings away like he did,” he stated.

Rohit Sharma averages 88.33 at home and 27.59 away. He has scored 122 runs so far averaging 40.67 with a fifty in this series. Against and in Australia, he has scored 401 runs in 7 Tests averaging 33.42.

Ricky Ponting: Rohit Sharma Would Love To Have His Time Over Again

In the meantime, despite the backlash all around, Rohit Sharma said that he doesn’t have any regrets for playing the stroke against off-spinner Nathan Lyon. He said that he prefers to take the attack to the opposition rather than going into his shell.

“He got to 44 comfortably, everything seemed to be hitting the middle of the bat, he just started to play some nice drives down the ground. And the trap was set for him as well, that mid-on fieldsman was three-quarters of the way back, there was also a deep forward square leg, so what Rohit was thinking there we’ll never know. I’m sure Rohit would love to have his time over again,” Ponting added.

Nathan Lyon
Nathan Lyon. Image Credit: Getty Images.

Rohit Sharma also understands how difficult it is to score runs against the current Australian bowling attack. Hence, he tried to figure out ways to score runs against them. In the last one and half years or so, Rohit Sharma has come up the ranks as a Test opener. As an opener, he averages 75.33 amassing 678 runs in 9 innings with 3 tons.

India are trailing by 60 runs after Australia scored 369 runs. For India, Washington Sundar is unbeaten on 54 while Shardul Thakur was bowled after scoring 67.

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