Has the time come to move on from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli? The star batting duo has been two of the best servants for Indian cricket, but after seeing their display in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25, is it the appropriate time to invest in youngsters and leave the modern legends behind?
Things were very rosy when the India cricket team reached Adelaide. Kohli had just scored his first hundred since July 2023, and Team India was leading by 1-0. The Indian captain had missed the Perth Test due to the birth of his second child, and one thought the side would get only stronger with Rohit Sharma‘s addition.
Questionable Playing XIs
That didn’t happen. Australia won three of the remaining four Tests and the series 3-1. One can even say rain saved Team India at The Gabba; otherwise, it could have been 4-1 as well. A lot of head-scratching decisions were taken. Including playing Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy as pure batters at numbers seven and eight.
This saw Akash Deep get injured after Melbourne and Jasprit Bumrah during the Sydney Test. Mohammed Siraj had to bowl so much that he had no life left moments before Australia sealed the series win. His numbers now don’t reflect how good he was, and people want him to get dropped.
BGT: Starc-Cummins better with the bat than Rohit Sharma-Kohli
Admittedly, the decision to not field an extra fast bowler who would shield Bumrah and weaken the batting cost Team India. But so did the hapless batting. Team India basically didn’t have a middle order. Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant were disappointed, but the biggest let-ups were from Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
The two senior-most batters performed so badly that Gill, who averaged 18.60, didn’t get much flak. We have read so many stats that at this point, there isn’t anything that will flabbergast us anymore. It’s fine if your opponent batters outscore you. Steve Smith and Travis Head have done incredibly well in what has been a bowling-friendly series, but to think that Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc outscored them and at a better average is just mind-boggling.
BGT 2024-25 Batting Stats: Virat Kohli-Rohit Sharma vs Pat Cummins-Mitchell Starc
| Innings | Runs | Average | 100s | 50s | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virat Kohli & Rohit Sharma | 14 | 221 | 17 | 1 | 0 |
| Pat Cummins & Mitchell Starc | 16 | 256 | 17.06 | 0 | 0 |
BCCI needs to take tough calls
But they did. Kohli scored a mere 31 runs more than Cummins after playing one extra innings. But Starc scored thrice as much as Rohit Sharma did. Heck, Scott Boland scored just one less run than the Indian captain. If this doesn’t wake the selectors up, nothing will. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has to make a call. This doesn’t just affect them or the team but even future players who could gain experience playing instead of them.
It’s also the mode of dismissal. All of Kohli’s eight dismissals have been caught behind the stumps while edging the ball outside the off stump. Boland publicly explained Australia’s plan to get him out before the last innings in Sydney and got him out in the same fashion again. Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar describes it as a problem so severe that one can’t do anything about it.
With Rohit Sharma, it’s age. He’s gotten slow. Akash Chopra, former Indian opener, thinks that his reflexes aren’t as good as before; therefore, he’s getting late on the ball, and his feet aren’t moving well enough either. There was no pattern of him getting out. He gets trapped leg before wicket one time, and another time he edges the ball to slips while flicking to the leg side, and then a harmless short ball gets him. Well, there is a pattern, getting worse with age and late-career decline.
