Sunil Gavaskar, a legendary hitter from India, gave the advice to Rohit Sharma, the captain of the Indian team, to score runs as quickly as possible in the remaining matches of the Twenty20 World Cup 2022. At the showpiece event that took place on October 23 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Sharma did not get off to a good start. His opponent was Pakistan. In India’s second innings, after being set a manageable goal of 160 runs to chase, the openers bowed down in the midst of a rising battle as the pressure mounted.
Shortly after the Pakistani fast bowler Naseem Shah finished off KL Rahul in the second over, Rohit followed his opening partner for a few strokes. Iftikhar Ahmed, who was fielding at first step, was able to take an amazingly low catch off a Haris Rauf delivery that was travelling at 145 kilometres per hour. Both Indian openers have the potential to contribute four runs each before falling out of the game and leaving the team in confusion. However, India was able to collect two points in their opening match against Pakistan by completing a remarkable victory on the final ball of the match.
In the year 2022, 14 of Rohit’s 22 dismissals have been in the powerplay overs. During those overs, he has scored 388 runs with a strike rate of 142.12. The Indian opener scored runs at a surprising rate of 151.46 in the year 2021 (259 runs in 11 innings, 4 dismissals), and 159.18 in the year 2020. (78 runs in 4 innings, 2 dismissals). In a recent interview with Sports Today, Sunil Gavaskar voiced his concerns about the declining performance of the Indian skipper in recent years by saying the following: “The concern has been the fact that Rohit Sharma has not scored with the same ability that we are familiar to see him. If he can get rolling, then he will make it very simple for the batsman to follow in his footsteps. Gavaskar is of the opinion that Rohit and Rahul need to quicken the pace at which they play the beginning of their innings in order to establish a sense of progress for the middle order. If you give a good platform a good start, it makes it easier for somebody going down at No.4 or 5, or at No.3, to be able to start striking from the first ball,” Gavaskar said.
He continued by saying: They don’t need to allow themselves any time to adjust to the new environment. They don’t need to give themselves up to steady the ship like India did against Pakistan when they were four wickets down for 31 runs. They don’t have to do that. Therefore, even if you get off to a little slower start in the first six overs, you still have a chance to reach 40 while only losing one wicket. That is a terrific platform, and it is a platform that is significantly better than 31 for four.”
There have been complaints made against the Indian openers claiming that they have not been able to keep up their consistent scoring rate as of late. In spite of this, Gavaskar dismissed the idea of maintaining consistency in a challenging format T20.
The famous cricketer offered his support to the Indian openers in terms of the consistency of their play by saying: “Uniformity is never going to be there in T20 ” said the commentator. Because the batsman is required to start taking risks from the very first ball, and if he does something wrong, he could end up losing his wicket. Therefore, there will not always be uniformity, but what is more crucial is that one of them stays around, and that helps quite a lot. ” On Thursday, October 27, India will face off against the Netherlands at the T20 World Cup at the Sydney Cricket Ground. This will be India’s second game of the tournament.
