The former batter of India, Sanjay Manjrekar, has blamed the captaincy of their ODI and T20I leader Rohit Sharma after the Blue Brigade was handed a home series defeat, for the first time since 2012/13, against the Tom Latham-led New Zealand side. This came on the back of their two defeats against Bengaluru and Pune.
The captaincy and some of the decisions of Rohit Sharma came under the scanner as he decided to bat first under overcast conditions on a surface at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, which was under the covers for four days.
The move didn’t work out at all as the pace department, consisting of Matt Henry and William O’Rourke, blew away the home side for just 46 runs, their third-lowest innings total in the longest format and by far the worst at home. The same batting department, despite gaining confidence in the second innings of the opening Test, again failed in the Pune game.
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The captaincy of Rohit Sharma for the Pune Test was under the microscope. Even on a spin-friendly surface at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium, he took a lot of time before bringing the veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin into the attack.
When the Tamil Nadu all-rounder started his first over of the game, the New Zealand openers decided to use their feet and nail the spinners into the stands. Even though Ashwin sent the opponent captain, Tom Latham, back into the hut, some of the aggressive batting resulted in defensive fielding where he was putting the fielder at the rope.
Sanjay Manjrekar slams the ‘bizarre’ captaincy of Rohit Sharma
The same process was followed even against the two other spinners of the side, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, which, in the end, never allowed the bowlers to put pressure at a constant rate on the opponent batters. This decision was questioned by Manjrekar.
The former Mumbai batter also criticized the move of the management to send Sundar ahead of Sarfaraz Khan in the batting line-up of the second innings just to maintain the left and right combination at the crease. He blamed Rohit Sharma for such poor decisions and advised him to come out of the T20 mindset of having such match-ups.
“The move to have Sarfaraz Khan bat down the order and send Washington Sundar above him because he is a left-hander, that kind of thing shouldn’t happen. It’s just bizarre. That’s one thing that Rohit Sharma needs to be careful of, the T20 thinking of match ups left hand-right hand combinations. I think he should just go by the overall quality and ability of players.” The former batter for the Blue Brigade expressed during an interaction on ESPNcricinfo.
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Rohit Sharma, with the bat, has also struggled in the series so far. In the first innings of the Bengaluru Test, he failed for just two runs before celebrating a half-century in the second and got out in an unlucky manner. The first innings of the Pune Test found him, getting bowled against Tim Southee, while in the second, his issues against the spinners were exposed.
India now finds themselves in a position of avoiding a series of whitewash at home for the very first time since 2000 when they lost against the Rainbow Nation. The third and final game of the three-match series against New Zealand begins on November 01 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.