Former cricketers Mark Butcher and Gautam Gambhir trumpeted Indian opener Rohit Sharma for his magnificent innings on the first day of the second Test match between India and England at Chennai.
Coming into the match after few poor outings, Indian opener Rohit Sharma dominated the English bowlers and brought up his fourth Test hundred as an opener and his seventh overall in the longest format of the game.
Rohit Sharma’s swashbuckling knock of 161 runs helped hosts reach the score of 300/6 at stumps on day 1. The India opener hit 18 boundaries and 2 sixes in his knock of 161 on the Cheapuk pitch, where the likes of Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara failed to dominate the English bowlers.
Addressing Rohit Sharma’s ‘sublime’ innings of 161 runs former England batsman Mark Butcher said that it was an absolute joy to see Sharma make batting look easy.
"It was a sublime innings. He struggled to make batting look difficult even when he was not scoring runs. When he is in this sort of form, he is an absolute joy to watch.
"I think England bowled a little short at him during the early part of his innings that really got him going. He used his long reach, he used his foot well, he decided he will be going downtown. It was a quite stunning innings,” Mark Butcher told Star Sports.
Butcher further pointed out that at one point Sharma had 3 quarters of India’s total and said that the latter’s knock might prove to be the difference between the two sides in the second Test.
"At one point, he had 3 quarters of India's total of his own. Ajinkya Rahane played around him and allowed him to play the way he wanted. It was a stunning knock. That will probably be the difference in this Test match." he said.
Reflecting on the same Former Indian cricketer Gautam Gambhir also lauded Rohit Sharma for his elegant knock and said that Rohit knows once he’s in he has to make it count.
“ He (Rohit) knows once you're in you have to make it count, especially as an opening batsman in any format of the game. When you're playing against the new ball, you will always have more failures than success. So once you're in, you have got to make sure you make it big because if they are a couple of failures, people forget it," Gautam Gambhir said.
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Gambhir further said that Rohit understands the value of scoring daddy hundreds and added that had Rohit been out on 100, hosts would have ended their day at 240/6.
"That's a great trait to have. A lot of people get to start but they are not able to convert but Rohit Sharma is completely different. He might have a lot of close calls but once he gets in, he gets those big hundreds and that puts the team in commanding positions.
“Imagine if Rohit hadn't got that 161. Had he got out on 100, reducing 60 for the target, India would have been 240 for 6. That would have made it an even day. So that big hundred with a very good strike rate is very, very crucial." he said.
With his knock of 161, Rohit Sharma went past the 150-run mark for the fourth time in Test-matches.
(Startsports inputs)
