India tour of South Africa: After Rohit Sharma was ruled out of the 3-Test series against South Africa due to hamstring injury on Monday, cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has expressed concern and questioned if the “tour should be cancelled”. Follow India tour of South Africa on InsideSport.IN.
India tour of South Africa: Baffled and concerned over multiple injuries, Aakash Chopra asks ‘What is happening?’
The former India opener pointed out the Indian team looks depleted all of a sudden because of the absence of injured Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel and Shubman Gill.
While, Ravindra Jadeja suffered a right forearm injury during the first Test in Kanpur, Gill has been diagnosed with a stress-related injury on his shin and Axar Patel has a stress fracture.
“Ravindra Jadeja unavailable, Axar Patel unavailable, Rahul Chahar unavailable, you don’t have Shubman Gill and now they are saying that Rohit Sharma is also not there. I mean what is happening? Should we cancel the South Africa tour?” Aakash Chopra said.
The 44-year-old asserted that India would find it hard to win without Rohit Sharma, India’s highest run-scorer in Test cricket this year. In fact, Rohit Sharma (906) is only behind Joe Root in the list in 2021.
“Rohit Sharma is going to be a huge miss. If his tour is in doubt, India’s chances are looking in doubt because who was your best Test batter in 2021. Why did you do well in England – Rohit was there with Rahul. Rohit has started loving Test cricket and he is enjoying leaving or defending,” Chopra said.
Further, the former Delhi batsman marked that the Indian team which boasted of four openers few weeks ago, looked weak after the injuries of Rohit and Gill.
“There are multi-fold problems. Shubman Gill and Mayank Agarwal had opened just now, KL Rahul was injured. I met KL Rahul recently and he said that he will be fine. You will see Mayank Agarwal opening along with him but who will be the third opener now?
“We were saying that it has become a story of four or five openers and here Mayank Agarwal has become the second opener and KL Rahul the first. And we have reached the stage when Mayank Agarwal made his debut, in a space of few weeks. The Indian team becomes significantly weak,” Chopra said.
Mayank Agarwal recently returned to form and scored a hundred – his first in over two years – against New Zealand in the Mumbai Test. He got the chance to open with Gill in the series after KL Rahul was ruled out due to muscle strain on left thigh.
The first Test between India and South Africa will be played in Centurion from December 26.
India tour of South Africa: Baffled and concerned over multiple injuries, Aakash Chopra asks ‘What is happening?’
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