The former Indian coach, Ravi Shastri, and the former Ashes-winning captain for England, Michael Vaughan, have been baffled by the clueless captaincy by Rohit Sharma during the third Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 at the Gabba in Brisbane. India was in a good position when they picked three quick wickets of the home side at 75 before Travis Head joined Steve Smith in the middle.
The stand of 241 runs between them for the fourth wicket snatched the entire momentum from the Rohit Sharma-led side, who sort of waited for both the veteran batters to attempt a mistake. Apart from their premier pacer, Jasprit Bumrah, hardly any bowler was able to put pressure on the home side.
It was again the 31-year-old who came back to break the stand with the wicket of Smith, who lost a bit of concentration after his 33rd century in Tests and went for a booming drive, while Head presided after that. At that moment, India could think of bundling out the Aussies for 380 runs or around, but they didn’t attack at all.
Rohit Sharma kept the fielder out on the boundary, which was making it easy for the new batters to get off the strike. Mitchell Starc came into the middle and punched the first ball into the point region to get off the mark. Head has struggled so much against the bouncers, but the blue brigade, who has been on the receiving end on so many occasions, didn’t apply it at all.
Ravi Shastri And Kerry O’Keefe slams Rohit Sharma’s captaincy in Brisbane
Ravi Shastri, the former head coach of the Indian side, reckoned that the field placement of Rohit Sharma against Travis Head at the start of his innings stated the visitor’s unwillingness to take the risk of getting hit for a boundary in exchange for what could have been a potential wicket.
“When you see the field set, that can cost you big time. I mentioned some time ago that the idea might be to contain and see if a wicket comes, but you are not going to contain Australia setting this field. With these two players playing the way they are, and Head in particular, looking to get a boundary every over.” The former spin all-rounder for India expressed at the end of the second day’s play.
“There is no doubt about that. He will get it. Then the problems start if five fielders are out at the boundary, and he is still getting the boundary, he is getting seven or eight runs an over easily. The runs are there to be taken.” Ravi Shastri claimed.
On the other hand, Michael Vaughan also criticized Rohit Sharma for not sticking to one particular plan for a long time. He was not much switched on with the captaincy.
“They don’t settle on a tactic for long enough. Are they trying to snick him off? Why don’t they try to bounce him out? Why don’t they go full and wide, pack the offside?” The former opening batter for England remarked.
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Rohit Sharma was already questioned a lot for his decision to bowl first under overcast conditions, while a voice was also raised for the selection of India, who went with Ravindra Jadeja as their lone-spinner and dropped veteran off-spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin.
Another former leg-spinner for Australia, Kerry O’Keefe outlined the negative leadership of the Nagpur-born, who looked a bit defensive on the second day.
“I don’t think Rohit Sharma has had his best day as skipper. He will say the pitch was so good that we were just trying to control it with outfielders, but you had to pressure Australia and get them out.” The former NSW spinner concluded.