Former India player Wasim Jaffer felt captain Rohit Sharma should take some time in 50-over cricket rather than starting with his high-risk approach. Rohit scored a quick 74 off 59 balls against Nepal in the final Group A clash of the Asia Cup despite starting at a 50 strike rate initially. His knock helped Team India to win by ten wickets and advance to the Super Four stage as well.

Speaking to ESPN Cricinfo, Jaffer said, “Especially in the ODI format. Can understand in T20 cricket wanting to take on the bowlers in the powerplay. But in 50-over cricket, he can take a bit of time and then he races past 50 and more. He doesn’t need to rush. If he plays out the first 10 overs nice and easy then he has got plenty of time being one of the better strikers in the world that makes six-hitting look easy. So scoring runs quickly isn’t a problem once he is set.”

However, despite not playing at a great average or not getting many centuries, Rohit Sharma has maintained a quicker scoring rate of 114 and 106 in the last two years as well. Meanwhile, another former Indian batter, Robin Uthappa, backed Wasim Jaffer’s sentiment concerning Rohit Sharma’s changed batting approach in ODIs as well.

“What’s heartening to see is that Rohit Sharma in the last 18 months started playing cricket a certain way which in my opinion was not necessarily the best for him. He was in this uber-aggressive approach which I thought was going against the grain of how he usually bats. He usually is someone who likes to take his time and once set he makes up for all the lost time that he takes,” said Uthappa. “In today’s game, he did something similar where he got in and once he understood the requirement and felt he was in, he started taking the attack to the bowlers. Hope he sticks to what works for him and in the past this has worked for him. His first 50 would come slowly in ODI cricket but the subsequent 50s would come in double quick time. So that’s a template that’s worked with him so hopefully he stays with that.”