Rohit’s big technical flaw a real concern for India: Anil Kumble

India captain Rohit Sharma’s poor form with the bat continued as the opener got out for just 18 runs in the first innings of the Mumbai Test match. Rohit was edged to the slips on Day 1 of the final Test match off Matt Henry – New Zealand’s pace spearhead for the game. The mode of dismissal had former cricketers Anil Kumble and Simon Doull worried ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Speaking after the close of play on Day 1 of the final Test match, Anil Kumble explained that Rohit Sharma had been getting out in the same manner against the fast bowlers. Kumble said that Rohit was being squared up by pacers early in his innings, which was a worrying sign for the India Test captain.
“These kind of dismissals, if you go back to even to the Bangladesh Test match when it was seaming away from him, the ball which holds its line from that angle, is troubling Rohit Sharma consistently. Tim Southee exploited that. And today Matt Henry is exploited the same length. He opens up that right shoulder, which certainly makes him vulnerable. And if you look at the seam, it’s just holding its line. It’s looked to go away from the right-hander. There’s not much swing here. The ball just hits the deck, stays with the line, and opens up thinking that the ball’s coming back in,” Anil Kumble explained Rohit Sharma’s issue with the bat on Jio Cinema.
IND vs NZ, 3rd Test: Day 1 Highights | Full Scorecard
“So that’s a technical concern which needs to be addressed because you have a five-Test series against Australia and he is a very important player for India, especially at the top of the order,” Kumble further added.
Simon Doull highlighted Rohit Sharma’s numbers against right-arm pace bowlers in 2024 and said that the India captain only averaged 24 against such bowlers. Sharma is going through a terrible patch of form in this Test series, where he has scored 2,52,0,8 and now 18.
“The ball jumped a little bit at him and left him a touch and he just gets exposed, I guess. And as Anil said, he just gets squared up a touch and that’s the issue around it, isn’t it? You look at the bat face, the bat face is pointing towards mid-wicket and so that means he’s getting squared up and that right shoulder, as you say, it’s just coming around a touch. It’s something I’m sure he’s working on. He was quite lucky to be there,” Simon Doull said while speaking at the same panel.
“I think the way he’s played you can tell that the ball’s actually jumped a lot more than he thought it was going to. It’s bounced, so therefore the shoulders and the hands tend to come up and ride with it when it bounces, you know, as batters, these are his woes against right arm pace in the home Test in 2024 you know, just averaging between 23-244. You look at those numbers and you think, wow, that’s not good numbers from a Rohit Sharma standpoint and from the standards that he set. So he’ll be concerned. But it’s something I’m sure he’s looking at,” Doull concluded.
After Rohit’s dismissal, India built a steady partnership with Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal. However, Jaiswal got out trying to reverse-sweep Ajaz Patel in the 18th over of the game. After Jaiswal’s dismissal, India lost 2 more wickets of Mohammed Siraj and Virat Kohli and closed the day’s play at 86/4, trailing by 149 runs.