Former Australia cricketer Dean Jones feels that there is no doubt in the fact that Rohit Sharma has a rare talent but his defensive skills are letting him down in Test cricket. Except for the skipper Virat Kohli, none of the specialist Indian batsmen could negotiate the potent South Africa pace attack in the two Tests that the visitors lost to concede the series.
Sharma was brought into the playing XI ahead of vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane on “current form”, but he also failed to justify his selection mustering 78 runs in four innings at 19.50.
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Talking about him, Jones said, “I look at him and he is technically sound. But the first thing that goes wrong in your game is your defense, and his (Sharma’s) defensive skills are letting him down. In Test cricket, 70 percent of batting is about your defense and in ODIs, it is 40 percent. So his defensive skills are letting him down. He has got to take pride in his defensive skills like Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and even Virat Kohli.”
Sharma was going through a strong run back home ahead of the South Africa series, where Rohit smashed a third double century in ODIs and a joint-fastest hundred in T20Is. Considering the touch he was in, the team management preferred him over Ajinkya.
Jones said India needed a tough tour like South Africa to sort out their team selection. He said, “You need to have these kinds of tours to sort out your composition, to find out whether they are good enough or not. So maybe there has been too much reliance on his (Sharma’s) ODI form but all in all, you have to have a series like this to find out if they are good enough. If he misses out in the next series, Ravi (Shastri) and Kohli can say ‘we gave you the opportunity’.”
Jones, however, has a different take on the touchy topic. “The modern-day schedules are such that often there is no time for a warm-up game. But why should you only rely on that? I have spoken to the likes of VVS Laxman, who tell me he, Dravid and Tendulkar used to start preparing three months before touring Australia.”
When asked about India’s chances in the SA series, he said, “I think the structuring of the series (with no warm-up games) is such that once you lose the first Test, it is very tough to come back. You don’t have many teams winning overseas anyway. I was researching on this, probably South Africa is the only team which has done well overseas in the past 10-15 years.”
Looking ahead, Jones feels that the England tour will be a good test for the Indian batsmen as the pitches in Australia have become flat. He said, “Kohli can only make so many runs, you need other players to stand up. England tour is going to be interesting. There are some question marks about the guys’ techniques. They can play well. And you got bowlers now who can bowl over 140 kmph and swing the ball. So I would like to judge this Indian team by how they do over the next two-three years. They have had just one bad tour.”
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Kohli is average is 53.51 in 65 Tests and Smith 63.75 in 61 games. Comparing them, Jones said, “His (Smith’s) numbers are better and he is different. All the greats are genius and they are different. Bradman was different, he played with split grips and so do Kohli and Smith. You don’t teach them how to play with split grips.”
Jones concluded, “Smith reads the length better than most, he has got an eye like a dead fish. How do you teach that? And my favorite Kohli is bringing in the traditional style of play in all three formats but Smith is different. It is okay to be different.”
