Batting coach Rathour wants Rohit to be 'more selective', rules out fault in Kohli's technique

Rohit Sharma has proved his batting credentials so far on the tour of England. He has been watchful around his off stump and very selective about what to play at and leave outside his off stump against impressive England pace bowlers.

However, even after five complete innings on the tour including two against New Zealand, he has not gone onto score a century, and on two out of four occasions he has gone out, he has scripted his own downfall rather than bowlers earning his wicket. 

He was batting in sublime touch before Ollie Robinson had induced a top edge of his bat while the right-hander was trying to pull a short delivery for six. 

His dismissal restarted the debate if he wastes his starts by poor selection of shots but a confident Rohit said that the pull shot has been the most productive shot for him and he will carry on playing that shot. 

True to his words, he kept on playing that shot in the second Test at Lord’s as well and ultimately was perished in the second innings against Mark Wood. More than the manner of his dismissals, his critics were very critical of him for not being able to pick the right balls to put the pressure back on the bowlers. He was guilty of falling prey to a trap laid out by Joe Root just a ball before the wicket wall and Rohit’s lack of game awareness and brazenness was questioned.

India’s bating coach Vikram Rathour was asked the question that whether the team management has had some words with Rohit over his pull shot, which has also emerged as a dangerous shot for him so far in the series.

Rathour made it absolutely clear that the team don’t want him to curtail his style of batting and instead they will back him to trust his own methods. However, he asserted that the right-hander must be more “selective” about which balls to attack and that the team management will have some “conversation” with him over the issue.

“We will be having a talk of what happened and what they were thinking while playing that shot. As far as Rohit is concerned, he has made it clear that pull shot fetches him runs so he is going to play those shots and we will back him playing those shots. The only thing, he needs to be a little more selective, if he can have that conversation and we will have that conversation with him,” Rathour said in the virtual press conference after the end of the fourth day’s play at Lords.

Rathour was also asked about the Indian middle-order that has not contributed much over the last couple of years. The trio of Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara has not been at their best and especially, Kohli has been found out around the off-stump which some experts are calling reminiscent of the horror tour of 2014. 

Rathour ruled out coming back of those issues around the off stump that haunted Kohli in the entire 2014 series and labelled his dismissal against Sam Curran as a result of a “lapse of concentration”.

“Kohli, I do not think there was an issue, it was just a lapse of concentration. I do not think there is anything old coming back,” Rathour asserted.

Discussing the overall middle-order issue, Rathour refused to put down their batting form as a concern and said that it would have been worrying had they were not planning enough to improve their batting. Instead, he said that they are going through a “rough patch” which is a usual phenomenon for people playing for a long time at the international level.

“Our job is to work on the processes, I will be concerned if they are not working hard or planning well. But they are working really hard, they have their game plans. As I said, in cricket these phases will come, especially with the guys who have been playing for so long, there will be times when they will not score runs, so again, as long as they are trying their best, I do not think we are concerned at all," he said.

India managed to get out of the jail courtesy of a fighting century stand between Rahane and Pujara on the fourth day and a swashbuckling partnership between Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah in the first session of the final day. However, Rathour and India will be hoping the duo of Rahane and Pujara will build on the form they earned after impressive innings in the second innings of the Lord’s Test.