India skipper on tampering with the batters’ mindsets and trying to complicate with the batters’ techniques.
India skipper on not wanting to ‘complicate too many things’ for Gill and Jaiswal.
Two players who are supposed to lead India’s batting in the future have had mixed results in the 2024 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Shubman Gill hasn’t made the most of his starts, and Yashasvi Jaiswal has been softly dismissed a few times since his 161 in Perth.
Prior to the Boxing Day Test, their skipper Rohit Sharma encouraged both players to succeed by their own means.
“When you have a guy like [Jaiswal] in your squad, in your team, you don’t want to tamper too much with his mindset,” Rohit said. “Let him be as free as possible and not overburdened with too many thoughts regarding his batting. He understands his batting more than any one of us, you know.
“Every venue here has different challenges. So, it’s just about adapting to those challenges, playing on different pitches. The bowlers are the same.
“So, it’s just about understanding what they usually do and what are their plans against certain batters when we come out to bat. And then just going out there and doing their thing.
“Talking about Gill, I mean, look, he is quality, we all know that. It’s just about backing that quality and making sure, you know, we give clear messaging to him and not, again, like Jaiswal, we don’t want to complicate too many things with him.
“So he knows how to score big runs. So it’s just making sure that when you get those 30s, 40s, you try and get on to a big one. Because getting in here is the toughest part. And when you get in, that is when you cannot leave that opportunity of scoring that big runs.”
India’s last practice before Boxing Day saw Rohit bat for more than 30 minutes. He had been hit in the knee before, but he didn’t appear to be in any trouble.
A couple that brought a throng of over 200 people to their knees was among the sharp pictures. Just as his practice was coming to a conclusion, they got one off the front foot after asking for the pull. While batting, Rohit avoided them, but after removing his pads, he approached them for a brief but amusing exchange of words.
On Christmas Eve, India had the opportunity to rehearse in the nets on much faster fields, which may be more similar to the pitch used in the game. When there was some grass on it on Sunday, Rohit took a look. There won’t be a lot of seam movement, but the competition will be exciting, according to curator Matt Page.
“In the previous two or three Test matches, the wicket didn’t have that much grass on it,” Rohit said. “It was dry. But this certainly doesn’t look to me like a dry wicket.”