File photo of Rohit Sharma.© AFP
Team India’s Test and ODI captain, Rohit Sharma has been under the spotlight since the 1-3 defeat to Australia in the 2024/25 Border Gavaskar Trophy series. The opening batter’s struggles continued in Australia which saw him recuse himself from the playing XI for the final Test at Sydney Cricket Ground. Former India cricketer Manoj Tiwari backs the captain to return to form and claims his lack of runs can be attributed to his low self-confidence. “The performance is not going well, there is no doubt about it. If the performance was going well he would not have dropped himself. After what happened in Sydney in the final Test, he himself clarified in his interview that he was not scoring runs, which is why he felt he should not play.
“When you are not scoring runs you lose your self-confidence and if your confidence is down, then your run-scoring percentage also falls down. He will definitely work on his batting. He is a blistering run-scorer in white-ball cricket and holds a lot of potential, a player of his calibre might take time to return to form so I believe he holds the potential to rectify his performances in red-ball cricket as well,” Tiwari told IANS on Monday.
India lost the five-Test series 3-1 and missed out on a third successive spot in the World Test Championship final. Rohit, who missed the first Test of the series due to the birth of his second child, failed to score beyond 10 runs across five innings before opting to rest in the fifth Test at Sydney Cricket Ground. He accumulated only 31 runs in five innings of the series and came under public scrutiny for his substandard outings. Moreover, former cricketers and the media also questioned his leadership skills which gave India a chance to win the ICC major in red-ball cricket.
India lost the opportunity to qualify for the WTC Final thanks to consecutive series losses against New Zealand and Australia. India had suffered a humiliating 0-3 clean sweep at home after a long gap.
“The performance has not been good. The performance in the Test match was not good. It has been good in T20, we won the World Cup a few months ago but now we have seen in Test cricket, we lost the home series 3-0 against New Zealand, that has happened after a lot of regret, this does not happen normally and should not happen either because you were playing in home conditions,” Tiwari added.
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