Two days of play have taken place in the World Test Championship final. Australia has taken the lead in two days and India is in danger of defeat. Australia scored 469 runs in the first innings and in response, Team India is struggling by losing five wickets for 151 runs. India is still 318 runs behind Australia's score. Now big innings are expected from Ajinkya Rahane and Shrikar Bharat.
In this match, the Indian team fell behind on the first day itself, when Australia scored 327 runs for three wickets. After this, the Kangaroo team was successful in scoring 469 runs. Rohit Sharma is captaining a Test match outside India for the first time in this match and within two days questions have started to arise on his captaincy. Rohit has made many mistakes in this match, due to which even the veteran players are angry.
Mistake in team selection
In this match, Rohit Sharma did not keep Ravichandran Ashwin in the team and his decision overshadowed the Indian team. Ashwin's record against David Warner and Steve Smith is excellent. Ashwin is also the world's number-one bowler in Test cricket and Australia has five left-handed batsmen in their team. Ashwin's record against left-handed batsmen is even better. Despite this, Rohit did not include Ashwin in the team and the Australian team was successful in scoring 469 runs. In this, the left-handed batsmen contributed 259 runs. Steve Smith also scored 121 runs, he is Ashwin's favorite victim.
Field setting reduction
Indian bowlers had started well in this match. Australia's three wickets had fallen for 76 runs. After this, Steve Smith and Travis Head shared a 285-run partnership to put Australia in a better position. During this, Sourav Ganguly raised questions about Rohit's field setting. He said that Rohit had not set the field. For this reason, Travis Head kept getting runs easily and shared a 285-run partnership with Smith.
Bowling change
Rohit Sharma made long spells from his bowlers in this match. This tired the bowlers, as all the players were already very tired after playing for two months in the IPL. The effect of this was that the edge was not seen in the Indian bowlers and the Australian players kept playing them easily. If Rohit wanted, he could have bowled with Jadeja in one end and could attack from the other end keeping the fast bowlers fresh, but Rohit did not do so and allowed Australia to score big. At the same time, Australian captain Pat Cummins used his bowlers in short spells. This kept the energy of the Australian bowlers going and they kept taking wickets at regular intervals.
How is Rohit's performance?
Since the year 2018, the Indian team has played 39 matches outside India under the captaincy of Rohit. Which includes ODIs and T20s. India has won 26 out of 39 matches and lost 13. Rohit has so far captained India in Test matches and proved to be successful as well. The team has played six Test matches under Rohit's leadership in India, out of which they have won four matches and faced defeat and draw in one match each. Rohit Sharma has captained the Indian team in a total of 83 matches so far. Out of these, India has won 62 matches, while 20 have faced defeat. One match ended in a draw.
(pc amarujala)
