Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has suggested that Rohit Sharma should change his approach while batting in Test cricket as the latter has mostly been playing ODIs lately. As India gear up for the first Test against South Africa on Tuesday, the skipper will return to action for the first time since the ODI World Cup final in Ahmedabad.
Rohit last played a Test match in July against West Indies. Since then, he has featured in 19 ODIs. He was in a rich vein of form in the World Cup, scoring more than 597 runs in 11 games which included 3 fifties and a hundred. More importantly, he provided fast and furious starts which helped the team post big totals on most occasions.
But as Rohit returns to the longest format after 5 months, Gavaskar explained why the Indian skipper will have to change his batting approach for the two Tests against the Proteas.
“First and foremost, the challenge would be to get your mental state into a Test match situation. He has been batting in the ODI format where he had decided that he was going to be playing the attacking role and try and score as many runs as possible in the first 10 overs of field restrictions,” Gavaskar said.
“He will have to change the approach completely for Test cricket because he will have to think in terms of batting the whole day. If he bats the whole day, then, clearly with the range of shots that he has got, he will be able to end up with 180 or 190 not out at the end of the day and India will be 300-plus,” Gavaskar added.
We are trained to move on from heartbreaks – Dravid
The World Cup final loss was quite a huge blow but the Indian head coach says the sportsperson is immune to heartbreaks and is trained to move on quickly towards the impending challenge.
“It was heartbreaking but you have to move on quickly in international cricket as we now have another important series coming up and all these series count towards trying to qualify for another ICC event in 2025 (WTC final),” Dravid said at the presser.
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