Rohit Sharma didn’t have the best time as captain in Bengaluru. He admitted he read the pitch wrong after choosing to bat first under the gloomy Bengaluru sky. Three spinners were played, Virat Kohli was sent ahead of KL Rahul despite the latter playing 75 of his 91 Test innings as an opener, and Jasprit Bumrah wasn’t given the ball when Tim Southee was whacking the spinners.
Where was Ashwin?
But perhaps the worst mistake was not handling Ravichandran Ashwin the ball in the fourth innings until the 25th over of the match. Soon after (27.4) the match was over. Aakash Chopra, like many avid cricket watchers, was puzzled by this decision by Rohit Sharma. He rightly pointed out that Ashwin is the highest wicket-taker in the Indian lineup and has the most wickets against left-handers. Yet with Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra present, he wasn’t brought on.
“No doubt the runs were less, but we didn’t get Ashwin to bowl at all. I am not saying we would have won the match if Ashwin had bowled, but we didn’t get him to bowl. That was surprising, and how? Why was Ashwin not bowled? I don’t have an answer for that because, if you see his numbers, he is your team’s best bowler. No one has taken more wickets than him in Test matches. Left-handers were playing, but you still didn’t get him to bowl. It was not understandable at all,” Chopra said on his YouTube channel.
What did you do, Rohit Bhai?
Ashwin is one of the best fourth-innings bowlers, with 99 wickets at 19.12 in 36 matches. Only Shane Warne, Nathan Lyan, Glenn McGrath, Rangana Herath, and Muttiah Muralitharan have more wickets than him, and none at a better average, and yet he was the fifth bowler in the second innings against New Zealand.
“You still understand Bumrah’s long spell because only two wickets fell and he took both. However, Mohammed Siraj from the other end. Although he was bowling well with the new ball when you stopped him, you could have gotten either Jaddu (Ravindra Jadeja) or Ashwin first; that’s fine, but you used Ashwin as the fifth option,” he added.
“The match was over. There was no life left in the match. 15 or 20 runs were left, and you called him to bowl. It would have been better if you hadn’t bowled him at all. This question should have been asked in the post-match press conference: ‘Rohit bhai, what did you do?’. I thought India definitely missed a trick, and it is beyond my understanding why he wasn’t bowled,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
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