"We couldn't chase in Hyderabad despite Rohit Sharma having scored a lot of Test centuries.."- Aakash Chopra's evaluation of India's captain vs England
Published - 27 Feb 2024, 12:41 PM
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Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra praised Indian captain Rohit Sharma for scoring 55 crucial runs on day four in the second innings in Ranchi. India won the Test by five wickets as they successfully chased down 192 to win in the first two sessions.
Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal (37) added 84 for the first wicket to give India a big leeway in the chase. The Men in Blue then lost five wickets in the next 40-odd runs going from 84/1 to 120/5.
It was then Dhruv Jurel (39*) and Shubman Gill (52*) unbeaten 72-run stand that took India to victory. However, Chopra sees immense value in Rohit Sharma’s knock on the final day. That it came on a tricky chase and in Virat Kohli’s absence made it even more special.
“Rohit Sharma has scored more than 4000 Test runs and has played 100 innings. His numbers are good, but despite having scored a lot of Test centuries, this half-century was special because when India needed 192 runs in this match, I was convinced that Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal were extremely important” said Chopra as he reviewed the Test match win on his YouTube channel.
Aakash Chopra further said that India failed to chase down in Hyderabad despite having a relatively experienced batting lineup.
“We couldn’t chase in Hyderabad and there Tom Hartley was playing his first match, Jimmy Anderson wasn’t there, India had KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer as well and the pitch was much better than this Ranchi pitch,” he noted.
Rohit Sharma Played Extremely Well: Aakash Chopra
He further lauded the Indian skipper for taking the game on against James Anderson and keeping the England spinners at bay for a long time.
“Rohit played extremely well in my opinion. Firstly, he hit a six off Jimmy Anderson’s bowling. He plays spin well because he is good at defending, stepping out, playing the sweep, and plays with soft hands. There is nothing that he does not do right against spin. Of course, he fell prey to Tom Hartley in the end” said Chopra.
He said that with the likes of Rajat Patidar, Dhruv Jurel and Sarfaraz Khan having never batted in the fourth innings of a Test match, Rohit soaked up the pressure and added crucial runs as an opener.
Meanwhile, this was India’s 17th consecutive Test series win at home. This was also the first Test series defeat for England under the Bazball regime. This was also the first time, England lost three Test matches in the trot. This was also the tenth Test match defeat for the trio of Root, Stokes, and Anderson in India.
“It has been a very hard-fought series without a doubt and to come on the right side of it at the end of four Test matches feels really good. Really proud of everyone in the dressing room. They were a lot of challenges thrown at us but I thought we responded pretty well. We had different challenges in different Test matches and I thought we were quite composed in what we wanted to achieve and what we wanted to do on the field, very happy” said an elated Rohit Sharma after the Test series win.
Also Read: “Thank you Rohit bhaiya, Rahul sir” – Dhruv Jurel posts special message after Ranchi Test heroics
