- By Namrata Vijay
- Sun, 15 Dec 2024 11:11 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
IND vs AUS 3rd Test: Indian skipper Rohit Sharma is quite brilliant in white-ball cricket but he can't lead the team from the front in the longest format and this was quite visible on the second day of the third Test match against Australia. The Indian bowlers did perform brilliantly as they took three wickets in quick succession during the first session and thus piled the pressure back on the hosts but then Travis Head was the new batter to come in and thus India's 'headache' continued as his sublime form against the Men in Blue continued and brought up a half-century again.
Both the Indian bowlers and Rohit Sharma let Head bat aggressively. Due to Head's quick knock, Rohit Sharma's captaincy was also criticized.
No putting pressure on Head when he came to bat
Everyone knows that Head has a weakness against short-ball and due to this a fielder should have been standing at short-leg or at leg-gully, had Head mistimed one of his shots. But what left everyone stunned was the fact that Head got lots of spaces and gaps continuously and he was never at strike for a long period of time.
There were no close fielders who could pressurize Head as he was scoring runs for fun. And at the same time, the Indian bowlers were poor with their lines and lengths and Rohit never told them to bowl short deliveries and give Head a hard time.
Should have brought Jadeja early in the innings
After Bumrah dismissed Nathan McSweeney and Usman Khawaja, Rohit should have used Ravindra Jadeja to bowl against the two right-handers Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith. At the same time, he also brought Nitish Kumar Reddy into the attack.
Although Reddy did give the team the much-needed breakthrough by taking Labuschagne's wicket Smith scored runs easily against him. A brilliant left-arm spinner like Jadeja could have given Smith a hard time.