Surinder Khanna on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli: Former Indian wicketkeeper-batsman Surinder Khanna has demanded to bench the out-of-form senior batsmen Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli after the 184-run defeat in the fourth Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Monday. Indian captain Rohit Sharma, who missed the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Perth, has been struggling to score runs on this tour. He has scored only 31 runs in five innings of three Tests. Not only this, the Indian captain has changed his batting position from middle order to top order and this has not benefited him in any way.
On the other hand, Kohli has failed to repeat his Perth century in the next five innings. He has scored 7, 11, 3, 36 and 5 runs in the last three Tests of the tour. His struggles outside the off-stump have been a major concern for the former captain. Despite showing good technique in the first innings of the Boxing Day Test, Kohli failed to convert a steady start into a big score and then made the same mistake in the second innings.
Khanna told IANS, “Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are not in full form. When your main batsmen are not in form and you do not have enough runs, it is difficult to win a Test match. Australia played better as per the conditions. “Played cricket and made good combinations, (Nitish Kumar) Reddy scored a century in his first tour and (Yashasvi) Jaiswal is playing well.”
This experienced cricketer said that the team management needs to show courage to talk to other players to make way for them. The former cricketer said, “Since Rohit came back, he has been playing in the middle order and top order, but is not able to score runs. This is a problem which Gambhir, the selectors and Rohit himself are not paying attention to.” .”
Surinder Khanna further said, “You need the courage to ask the captain and Virat Kohli to sit down and talk one-on-one so that someone else can play. You expect your senior cricketers to score runs, but they are completely “They are not in form… To get good results, you need to take some tough decisions. The board will allow these players to take their decision, but it is certain that it will not happen.” Australia is leading 2-1 in the five-Test series. The final test of the series will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground from January 3.
