Can struggling Sharma step up as captain?
CHENNAI: It was day three of the Pune Test against New Zealand. Having lost the home Test series 3-0, a dejected Rohit Sharma addressed the media. For the first time in 12 years, India had lost a series at home. They had won 18 consecutive Test series in India, losing only four Tests at home prior to the Pune game. A win percentage of 77.77 in 54 Tests with 42 wins.
The magnitude of the loss was such that Sharma was facing some tough questions. While acknowledging what went wrong and taking responsibility, Sharma said he and the team wanted to focus on good things that they had done well for so long. He went on to say, “We are allowed one such performance in 12 years. If we were collapsing like this on a regular basis then we would not have been winning at home. We have a lot of expectations. We are expected to win every game at our home, and it is because of our performances.”
Cut to another day three, this time in Adelaide. Sharma, once again, is in front of the media after a ten-wicket hammering in the pink ball Test against Australia. And as he had been repeating after every loss, Sharma attributed the result to the batting failure, especially in the first innings. When asked how the team will ensure there aren’t any mental scars with only a few days left for the Brisbane Test, Sharma was quick to respond.
“Firstly, it's not a scar. We've lost a Test match. We didn't play well enough,” he said. “It's important in this short time that we have before the next Test match, just to figure out certain things with our own selves, about if we want to bat, how we want to bat, and if we want to bowl, what lines and what lengths, and what kind of placement we need to have. Those are the things, more than anything else. Like I said, it's still one-all. There's plenty of things left in this series still. There's definitely a way for us to get back into the game,” he added.
On both the occasions, Sharma was trying to be pragmatic while attempting to ensure the players do not go into a negative mindset. It is the kind of attitude that made Sharma a great white-ball captain, whether it is ODIs or T20Is. However, it is the same comments that drew flak, especially the one in Pune, about his Test captaincy.
Sharma, while trying to take the team through transition in the November of his career, was perhaps taking the heat - as he should - as captain. But at the same time, that doesn’t mask the flaws in his red-ball captaincy which has played a part in recent results.
When Sharma said that India would not have been winning at home if they had been collapsing regularly, it was true but until maybe the pandemic broke. Since then, it has been the middle-order and lower-order batters who have been rescuing them while bowlers doing the job with the ball.
They kept coming back from precarious positions so often that it covered for the faults in the tactics and Sharma’s captaincy in general. That he was scoring runs only helped the case.
Right now, things are different. Sharma is going through a rut and Jasprit Bumrah has shown that he is ready. While it was always going to be an uphill task to beat Australia in a pink ball Test in Adelaide and match Bumrah’s success in Perth, the moment India’s batting collapsed it all went downhill. Every decision Sharma took hardly worked, and hence, was questioned.
Whether it is playing Harshit Rana over Akash Deep or not bowling Bumrah enough in the first session on day two or looking like he did not have answers for Travis Head - third time in the last year and a half on crucial occasions - did not look good on the captain.
That India did not exploit his probable weakness against short-pitched delivery once again made one wonder whether they have learnt any lessons from the past losses. The worn out look on Sharma sitting in isolation at the Adelaide dug out after the loss, staring into the oblivion told the story.
As the Indian team touched down in Brisbane, getting ready to turn things around, Sharma had quite a few questions in front of him. Should he go back to opening, is Reddy, despite his impressive show with the bat, impactful enough with the ball on pitches that aren’t like Perth, whether they should go to a known combination of best bowlers to take 20 wickets. And if the decisions made to any one of these questions don’t go India’s way, they would slump further and Sharma would once again be in a familiar position, where he doesn’t want to be.
Although Sharma has been at the front and centre of India’s transition as leader, he is on borrowed time, especially as Test captain. And he, perhaps, knows it too. A lot will depend on how the rest of the series goes — the last one for India in this WTC cycle. For him to turn it around, Sharma will have to put forward every step perfectly both as captain and a batter. And he should start doing so in Brisbane.