Michael Vaughan hits out at Rohit Sharma! claims Virat Kohli was a better Test Captain

Former England captain Michael Vaughan who is known for his derogatory remarks on Indian cricket and its players, has hit out at Indian skipper Rohit Sharma for not doing enough tactically to help his side prevail over England in the 1st Test at Hyderabad. Vaughan also stated that if Virat Kohli was in charge of the team then they wouldn’t have lost the opening encounter of the 5-match series.

Vaughan was extremely vocal about his thoughts on Rohit Sharma “the captain” while writing for his column in the Telegraph newspaper. The 51-year-old lashed out at him for not being proactive with bowling and fielding changes, claiming that Rohit was clueless when Ollie Pope was displaying his masterclass on day 3.

“I thought Rohit Sharma’s captaincy was very, very average. I thought he was so reactive, I don’t think he maneuvered his field or was proactive with his bowling changes. And he didn’t have any answer to Ollie Pope’s sweeps or reverse sweeps.” – Vaughan said. 

As Pope was playing sweeps and reverse sweeps as if they were cover drives and straight drives, Rohit Sharma and his side were frustrated with the way things turned out for them after initially being ahead of the Three Lions in most of the sessions in Rajiv Gandhi stadium.

Despite having three well-experienced spinners in the side, India were systematically destroyed by the unconventional batting of England, which helped the visitors in first putting off the 190-run trail before setting up what turned out to be a difficult total of 231 for India to chase down. 

“Rohit Sharma Just Switched Off”, Vaughan Opines On Virat Kohli Being A Better Test Captain

Rohit Sharma’s captaincy was not the only thing that was criticized as his batting too looked out of place across both innings. It was clear that India missed the services of Virat Kohli in the middle-order but Michael Vaughan feels that India are also missing Kohli’s services and tactics as captain. 

“They missed Virat Kohli’s captaincy massively in Test cricket. Under Virat’s captaincy that week, India wouldn’t have lost the game. Rohit is a legend and a great player. But I felt he just switched off completely.” – Vaughan concluded.

It was not just Michael Vaughan who found Rohit Sharma and his men’s attitude alarming. The likes of Dinesh Karthik and Harsha Bhogle among others claimed that the Indians had a very lethargic and tired kind of attitude on the 3rd day and that was how the 1st Test slipped out of India’s hands. 

If the 1st Test was difficult to win then expect nothing less than that in the 2nd Test as well. While the English contingent has been bolstered with the arrival of uncapped off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, the hosts who were already without Virat Kohli, now find themselves without Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul in the middle-order. 

There are talks about handing debuts to either Rajat Patidar or Sarfaraz Khan to slot in at 4 while Washington Sundar, Sourabh Kumar, and Kuldeep Yadav are all in the race to replace Jadeja. Whom will the Rahul Dravid-led management trust? In 2 days, we’ll find out.