India had to make quite a few changes in their Test squad for the Bangladesh series because of injuries to a number of their key players including Rohit Sharma. The Indian team management is still hopeful of Rohit returning to the squad for the second Test but Mohammed Shami and Ravindra Jadeja are out of both series. While missing Shami and Jadeja leaves the Indian bowling attack thin, Rohit’s absence will help the team management to pick the XI, opines former India cricketer Mohammad Kaif.
During a chat on Sony Sports Network, Mohammad Kaif said, “If Rohit was there, they would have struggled to pick the top two because Shubman Gill is there and KL Rahul is there. Now that Rohit Sharma is not there, we are sorted, then we can have Gill and Rahul opening for the first Test. No.3 will be Pujara, four will be Virat Kohli, five Shreyas Iyer, six Rishabh Pant, and then five bowlers with Ashwin and the others coming in.”
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India has replaced Rohit with Abhimanyu Easwaran for the first Test but the chances of him getting a match are slim. Easwaran, for his part, has been in great form, notching up two solid hundreds in the four-day games against Bangladesh A.
When asked whether Rohit was the right choice to replace Virat Kohli as India’s all-format captain, Mohammad Kaif said the veteran cricketer has done well as a captain and the expectation of putting an end to the ICC trophy drought gives rise to such a question.
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Mohammad Kaif explained, “Rohit has done well since he became captain. Apart from the big multi-nation events like Asia Cup and World Cup. It was the same with Virat. When he was the captain, he was winning all bilaterals so when Rohit became captain people thought we need to win ICC events as there were no trophies. But overall, his record is good. There are ups and downs. India played well, apart from one bad against England. Still, early days for us to judge how he has done.”
