Melbourne: Ahead of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, India captain Rohit Sharma has backed star batter Virat Kohli to come back strong in the remainder of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against Australia.
Kohli, who scored a hundred in the second innings in Perth, has endured a series of low scores of 7, 11, and 3 in the following three innings.
“Modern-day greats will figure out their own way of (carving out their) path,” said the skipper when asked about Kohli’s form at the press conference in Melbourne Tuesday.
On the other hand, Rohit, who demoted himself to the middle order, has only accumulated 19 runs in the last two Tests. He missed the series opener due to the birth of his second child. He was also struggling in the three-Test home series against New Zealand, which India lost 3-0 to dent their World Test Championship final hopes.
With the ongoing five-match series tied at 1-1, India have a monumental task to win the last two Tests to play the championship final at Lord’s next year. In the tour so far, India’s batting has been a major concern rather than their bowling. KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s opening combination has pushed Rohit to bat late in the middle order, which might be the case behind his poor outings in Adelaide and Brisbane.
However, Rohit admitted their batting order struggle but remained tight-lipped on revealing any change and left it for the match day.
“Let’s not worry about who bats where. (It is) something that we need to figure (out) and not something (that) I would be discussing here. We will do what is best for the team,” Rohit said in the pre-match press conference.
Rohit faced an injury scare Sunday when the 37-year-old batter was struck on his left knee by a delivery from throwdown specialist Daya during India’s second practice session at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This session was in preparation for the fourth Test against Australia, set to begin December 26 at the same venue.
Despite continuing to bat briefly after the incident, Rohit required medical attention shortly afterwards. However, he dispelled any concerns about his fitness and said that he was completely fine and ready for the Boxing Day Test. “It’s fine,” Rohit said when asked about his fitness.
“Nothing has changed since I last spoke about it. We’ve has two sessions, and in those sessions, what can change?” Rohit added when asked about adapting to the new conditions at practice.
“Those pitches in which we trained for the last couple of days were used pitches. Perhaps they were used for Big Bash. Now, today is the only day where we are going to get the other side of it, which will be a fresher wicket. So, we will go and see how it is and train accordingly.”
