India Cricket Team had a 190-run lead. Yet, they bottled it to a struggling batter and a debutant spinner. Ollie Pope created history with 196, playing his best-ever knock while Tom Hartley hurt India despite debut blues in the first innings. And Rohit Sharma could only watch and failed to come up with a Plan B. Former England captain Michael Vaughan hit out Rohit Sharma in his column on The Telegraph, calling his captaincy “very, very average” in the IND vs ENG 1st Test in Hyderabad.
India lost the match by 28 runs with Tom Hartley bagging 7/62 on debut and Ollie Pope scoring 196.
“Again and again, we’ve seen captains really struggle when confronting the Bazball tactics for the first time in a series. India have become the latest team to fall into that trap. In India’s first-Test defeat in Hyderabad I thought Rohit Sharma’s captaincy was very, very average,” Michael Vaughan wrote.
Rohit Sharma’s captaincy blunders
Michael Vaughan isn’t wrong. Even as Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley Bazballed Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel in the second innings, he let the two continue. He only called up Jasprit Bumrah or Mohammed Siraj for short bursts without any success.
Ollie Pope continued to play reverse sweeps but there was no protection. In fact, England scored 48 runs off reverse sweeps that included 10 boundaries. Rohit Sharma could only watch the balls go to the boundary.
There were also issues with body language that clearly showed he was under pressure. And Rohit Sharma could not lift the team up like Virat Kohli used to. It was a repeat of World Cup 2023 final when one batter took the game away completely.
“I thought he was so reactive, I don’t think he manoeuvred his field or was proactive with his bowling changes. And he didn’t have any answer to Ollie Pope’s sweeps or reverse sweeps,” Michael Vaughan added.
All to easy
While spinners had their off days too, Rohit Sharma did not change things around. Even Anil Kumble said Indian spinners should have bowled from a different angle. But there was none.
“The greatest spinner I’ve seen, Shane Warne, would go around the wicket and get the player to sweep the leg side and say good luck trying to do that. I didn’t see any of that from India. It was just all too easy. The way that England play, they will always score boundaries. And by spreading the field Sharma was basically saying that his bowlers’ best balls would still go for one,” Michael Vaughan wrote.
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