India made surprising changes to their batting order and team combination for the fourth Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Shubman Gill was dropped and replaced by Washington Sundar. Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir didn’t allow KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal to open the innings despite the former’s magnificent performances in the opening slot. Rohit came as an opener and scored just 3 runs to put the team on the back foot. Former players slammed him for using his captaincy power to make the change.
Former India player Sunil Gavaskar, who was urging the skipper to open the innings from the second Test, didn’t seem impressed this time. He was also not in favour of breaking the opening partnership between Rahul and Yashasvi and felt the decision was not needed.
“Had Rohit Sharma scored 30-40 runs in Brisbane, the decision to open the innings over here in Melbourne was justified. But he is out of form and didn’t do anything with the bat in the previous Test. I feel it was a poor decision to play as an opener in the fourth Test. There was no need to break the pair of Rahul and Jaiswal. Rahul, in particular, has been magnificent for the team, and you can’t do that to an in-form batter.
“If Rohit wanted to change his batting order, he could have easily come at No.3 and who knows with 50-60 runs on the board and him coming out to bat after the loss of a wicket, the chance of him scoring runs would have been much brighter,” Sunil Gavaskar said on Star Sports.
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