India captain Rohit Sharma has come out in support of his predecessor Virat Kohli, who has continued to struggle with the bat in the just held T20I series against England.
Kohli’s struggle with the bat continued in England too, as he managed to score just 1 and 11 in the second and third T20I matches against the home side. He could only manage to score only 31 runs across two innings during the Birmingham Test last week, which the touring party lost.
Due to his lacklusture form, Kohli is being criticised by former cricketers and fans. However, Rohit defended the former captian and said: “It is not difficult for us as we do not listen to the outside noise. I don’t know who the experts are. I don’t even understand why they are called experts. They are watching it from the outside, they don’t know what is going on inside. We are building a team, we have a certain thought process. A lot of deliberation goes behind it. There is a lot of thinking behind it. Boys are backed. Boys are given chances. People outside don’t know all these things. It is not important what is going on outside.”
“If you talk of form, it goes up and down for everyone. The quality of a player never goes down and we should remember that. When you make certain comments, you should always remember that the quality of a player does not go down. We back that quality. It has happened with me, it has happened with XYZ, it has happened with everyone, it is nothing new. When some player has done so well consistently for so long, that can’t be written off in one or two series or one or two years. It takes people time to understand it completely, but those who are running the team know the importance of that quality,” he added.
Talking about the aggressive approach being taken by Kohli, Rohit said: “It’s a bit of both (when asked if Kohli’s approach is a team instruction or a personal choice). We, as a team, want to play in a certain way, and every player needs to buy into that thought process. Otherwise, you know, it’s not going to happen for you. And all the players, all the batters, who are part of this squad, are willing to take that extra risk and go and see what extra they can do with the bat.”
“It’s important to find out within yourself, you know, to try and do different kinds of things. Unless you try it, you will never be able to find out. So I think it is something that we have been trying to do for a while now. Some days it might come off, some days it might not. But we don’t want to be afraid of going in and taking that extra risk. That’s how we’re going to learn as a team and that’s how we will move forward as a team. So it’s in everyone’s thought process, everyone is quite comfortable with that idea. So yeah, that’s the kind of direction the team is going to move in.”
When asked about the upcoming ODI series against England, Rohit said: “It is important for us to understand white-ball cricket properly. I mean 50-over cricket is an extension of T20 cricket. You might take slightly fewer risks than you do in T20s, but we have to take risks. It is not as if we won’t take risks. We need to get used to playing freely. When you try to play freely, it comes with its failures both in individual performance and in team results, but you get to learn a lot from that.”
“We are looking at the bigger picture, not the small picture. As it is, in India, we are used to two-and-a-half-hour pictures. All these matches are crucial for us because somewhere we need to change something, and we can see things have started to change slightly. The biggest takeaway from this series has been the approach of each and every individual who has played in this series for us. How they have come and relished the moment in the middle, taking on the opportunity, taking on the opposition, taking that extra risk. The mindset is something that we are trying to change, and they are willing to do that. They’re willing to take that risk. And when I go and talk to certain individuals, I hear the same kind of response from them,” he added.
Notably, India failed to secure a clean sweep over the Three Lions as England registered a win by 17 runs in the third anf final T20I in Nottingham.
India will now face the host in a three-match ODI series against West Indies. The team will be led by Shikhar Dhawan as Rohit Sharma, along with Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Rishabh Pant, has been given a rest.