Former India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar feels that the India and Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma is still an underrated captain and that he isn’t credited enough for his tactics.
During the IPL 2023 eliminator, Rohit made the most of MI pacer Akash Madhwal to help the team secure a resounding victory.
Post their victory, Madhwal, who returned with a dream spell as he took a fifer revealed that skipper Rohit had advised him on how to execute his plans and that he had told him beforehand that such a situation could come.
Citing Madhwal’s example, Gavaskar explained how Rohit’s tactics helped the player pick the wickets and said, “Of course, he is underrated. The man has won five titles for Mumbai Indians. Let me give you an example. Maddhwal got Ayush Badoni, bowling over the wicket. He then went round the wicket to the left-hander Nicholas Pooran. Not a lot of bowlers necessarily do that because if they get their rhythm going bowling over the wicket, they will stick to over the wicket even it’s a left-hander. They will try to the ball away from the left-hander. But he went around the wicket and produced an absolute gem of a delivery and got the man out,” Gavaskar told India Today.
“If that had been CSK and Dhoni was the captain. Everybody would have said ‘Dhoni plotted Nicholas Pooran’s dismissal. This is what happens to a great extent. There is also a little bit of hype, things sometimes work out,” Gavaskar added.
“What I am saying is Rohit Sharma did not get the credit for telling Madhwal to bowl around the wicket,” he said.
The former India captain further emphasised Rohit’s decision to choose Nehal Wadhera as an Impact Player in the first innings alone, despite MI’s easy option to go for an additional bowler when they were defending.
“The captaincy situation as well. Remember, Nehal Wadhera was used as an impact player batting first. Teams generally don’t use batters as Impact Player when they are batting first. But Rohit used Nehwal when MI were batting first against LSG. So please give him credit for that as well,” Gavaskar concluded.
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