Rohit Sharma has had a few many problems against the left-arm seamers. Trent Boult was expected to create a few problems for Indian openers and that’s exactly what he did. Boult bowled a fiery spell. At first, he took the wicket of Shikhar Dhawan trying to fish outside the offstump line. Then it was Rohit who went for a glorious shot off an outstanding inswinger that nipped back into the stumps. It was full and into the stumps but Rohit went for the shot expecting it would be a typical good length delivery. The ball ended up hitting the stumps and cutting short Rohit’s innings who had hit two sixes off Tim Southee in the previous over.
There was no need for Rohit to go for a big shot and that too on a ball which was bowled in the area of uncertainty. Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir was the first batsman who identified the weakness of Rohit against the fiery inswingers. Amir got the better of Rohit in the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 final and in the Asia Cup T20 2016 before that. After Amir, it was Australia’s Jason Behrendorff who surprised Rohit with an inswinger and got the better off him.
Here’s the video of Rohit’s wicket –
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Rohit struck two sixes off Tim Southee in the fifth over off the short balls. He scored 20 runs off 18 balls before throwing his wicket away trying to launch a counter-attack against Boult.
The Indian opener tried to prepare for Boult by playing Arjun Tendulkar in the nets. He struggled against Arjun as well, especially off the deliveries that nipped back into the right-hander. Former Indian cricketer VVS Laxman too pointed out that Rohit has a flaw in his technique while tackling the left-arm seamers. This is the 12th time he got out to left-arm seamer. He will surely try to address this issue in the upcoming games.
