Ricky Ponting Slams Rohit Sharma For Throwing His Wicket Away In Brisbane

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has come down hard on Rohit Sharma for the way the India opener threw his wicket away on Saturday during day two of the ongoing Test in Brisbane. The India opener was looking in ominous touch and was middling almost all the deliveries. In no time, he had raced away to 44 before a moment of madness saw him throw his wicket away.

He had already hit six boundaries before trying to go for another shot when Nathan Lyon came to bowl. However, the Australia spin spearhead cleverly adjusted the line and length of his delivery, keeping it close to Rohit Sharma’s body. As a result, the right-handed batsman did not get the elevation and holed out.

The poor shot selection that led to his dismissal has once again opened Rohit Sharma’s Test game up to criticism. Several former cricketers including the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Sanjay Manjrekar criticised the senior batsman for his shot and Ricky Ponting has joined the bandwagon too. After the end of day’s play, Rohit Sharma defended his case by saying that he was playing his natural game and even the team management wants him to be aggressive at the top of the order.

Ricky Ponting, however, didn’t buy his justification and called for the opener to “be better” in future. The legendary cricketer told Rohit that he cannot keep throwing his wicket away if he wants to succeed in the longest format of the game.

“It’s easy to say that’s the way he plays but you’ve got to be better than that. If you want to be a really good, consistent Test match batsman you can’t just be going and throwing what could have been such a promising innings away like he did.

“He got to 44 comfortably, everything seemed to be hitting the middle of the bat, he just started to play some nice drives down the ground. And the trap was set for him as well, that mid-on fieldsman was three-quarters of the way back, there was also a deep forward square leg, so what Rohit was thinking there we’ll never know. I’m sure Rohit would love to have his time over again,” Ricky Ponting told cricket.com.au.

Talking about the game, rain played spoilsport on day two before India ended the proceedings on 62 for 2. Earlier in the day, Australia were all out for 369 after starting the day on 274 for 5.

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