"Only 1 person thought England could win and that was.."- Steve Harmison lashes whip on Rohit Sharma

Former England pacer Steve Harmison has become the latest former cricketer to lash out and criticize the tactical thinking of Indian captain Rohit Sharma after his side thwarted a great opportunity to claim victory in the 1st Test against England in Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi stadium by a margin of 28-runs.

Rohit Sharma is being slammed all over on social media due to some of his decisions during the game and he is the one who is receiving most of the blame for India’s dramatic loss. In better parts of the game, the hosts were ahead of England and it wasn’t until day 3 that the visitors started crawling their way back into the Test match.

The Indians had started the game well, restricting England’s first Bazball batters to just 246 before posting a mammoth 436 runs in the 2nd innings, thanks to knocks from Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat, and Axar Patel.

It was from the 3rd innings onwards that the game started to go in favor of England. Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley gave good starts before the latter received his marching orders from Ashwin while Duckett kept going. It took a reverse swinging spell from Jasprit Bumrah to bring India back into the game.

Bumrah took back-to-back wickets from Duckett and then Joe Root before Johnny Bairstow and Ben Stokes went to the dressing room for scores of 10 and 6 respectively. The batter that India could not manage to get out was Ollie Pope, whose masterclass knock of 196 not only brought life back to the Three Lions dugout but also provided a glimmer of hope that getting a victory is still possible.

He made partnerships of 64 and 80 respectively with Rehan Ahmed and Tom Hartley and that was exactly where the captaincy of Rohit Sharma was heavily criticized. The bowling changes he made and the type of fields he would set up for tailenders were extremely poor and it was a reason why England posted 231 runs as the target.

Steve Harmison felt that England showed a brilliant character but Rohit Sharma’s tactical thinking was very poor.

“Rohit Sharma’s captaincy got caught wanting in that second innings. It’s an unbelievable win. I think there’s only one person who thought England could win and that was Ben Stokes. And he got 10 other people to believe as well. Not many would have given England a chance when they were 190 behind. But this is the beauty of this team. They don’t look at the scoreboard.” – Harmison said.

Rohit Sharma Still Has A Lot To Play For In Next 4 Tests

While Rohit Sharma has become a subject of criticism, it should also be noted that it is a long Test series and there’s still a lot to play for in the next 4 Tests in Vizag, Rajkot, Ranchi, and Dharamshala. The Indian team gets their engine started after the 1st Test and it was something that Rohit Sharma had himself claimed while speaking to Dinesh Karthik before the series.

The Indian skipper will also be hoping to get his batting performance on track alongside his team’s as well when the 2nd Test starts from February 2nd onwards.