India skipper Rohit Sharma opened up on batter Shubman Gill failing to make it into the playing eleven at the Melbourne Test and said that they wanted to have that extra bit of cushion in the bowling for which the 25-year-old left behind. Australia clinched a 184-run victory over India at the Melbourne Test, with the win the host took a 2-1 lead in the series. While India’s chances of qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) Final at Lord’s fade away. In a surprising change to India’s lineup for the Boxing Day Test at the iconic MCG, Shubman Gill was dropped, and Rohit Sharma made a return to the top of the batting order.
In the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Shubman Gill has played two matches and three innings, where he scored 60 runs at an average of 20 and has a strike rate of 71.42.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Rohit said that Shubman Gill was not dropped from the playing eleven. He added that the team went with an extra all-rounder for which Gill was left behind.
“I had a chat with him. There is no way when you are leaving someone out for whatever reason it is, you will not have a chat. And the chat with him was clearly he was not dropped. We just wanted to have that extra bit of cushion in the bowling. And hence we opted for an all-rounder which shouldn’t weaken our batting line-up. Compromising a batter for a bowler was not something that I wanted to do. We wanted to bat as deep as possible and along with that to have a bowling attack which can take 20 wickets,” Rohit said at the press conference.
The skipper added that there was never a doubt that Gill was not batting well or he was not scoring runs.
“We considered everything and we ended up compromising him, unfortunately. But again, look, with him there was never a doubt that he was not batting well or he was not scoring runs or anything like that. It was just to get that combination where we can cover both bases, batting and bowling, we opted for that option,” he added.
The India captain further added that sometimes one has to make sure whatever suits the conditions.
“Of course, everyone has to understand that because eventually, we don’t make personal decisions. It is in the best interest of the team. We want to put the team ahead and think about what is the right combo for this particular venue and this opposition. So that’s how I planned to pick up the team. Sometimes, yeah, you can see there’s been a lot of changes in the team. But sometimes you got to make sure that whatever suits the conditions, suits your team and where you can cover all sides of the facets of the game, you make that decision and that’s what we did,” he added.
Australia gave a target of 340 runs to India at the start of Day 05 of the Melbourne Test. The visitors had the whole day in hand but couldn’t make the best out of it. The fiery spells from the Aussie bowling attack bundled out India at 155 in the 80th over.
Pat Cummins was named the ‘Player of the Match’ following a stupendous performance with both bat and ball.
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