New Delhi, Feb 8 India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak said he was not concerned about captain Rohit Sharma’s recent poor form, citing the veteran’s good statistics in the 50-over format. Rohit had a poor Test tour of Australia, and his lean run continued when he was dismissed for just two in the ODI series opener against England at Nagpur.
“See, I personally don’t think there is any problem. In the last three One-dayers (before the series opener in Nagpur), Rohit scored 56, 64, and 35 (against Sri Lanka last year), nearly averaging 50-plus. We are talking about a player who has got 31 ODI hundreds. When he keeps scoring runs in back-to-back matches, nobody asks, ‘When will he fail?’”
“Sometimes when somebody gets out or is going through a lean patch, I don’t think I would be worried about their form. Yes, in the Australia Test series – that was a tough time. About the One-dayers, the way he batted in the last three One-days before the first match (in Nagpur), he has always been scoring runs. So, not really so much concern about that,” said Kotak in the pre-match press conference ahead of the second ODI happening in Cuttack on Sunday.
In their chase of 249 in Nagpur, India lost two wickets early before Shubman’s 96-ball 87 along with fifties from Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel got them over the line in 38.4 overs. Kotak didn’t see much of an issue in India losing their openers early in the chase at Nagpur, where they took a 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series. “(Shubman) Gill, Shreyas (Iyer) and Axar (Patel) batted really well. You are going to lose some wickets, whether it’s openers or middle-order. As a batting unit or as a team, there were a lot of positives – the way we batted, the way we showed our intent,” he signed off.
In the pre-match press conference before the Nagpur ODI, Rohit had responded with irritation to a question on his poor form in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia, asking how was his form in Tests relevant to One-day Internationals. He said ODIs is a different format to ODIs and batting in each format is different. He eventually got for two runs.
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