When was the last time the pitch determined a captain’s inclusion in the playing XI? Has it ever happened in 148 years of Test cricket? The final Test between India and Australia starts tomorrow in Sydney. And on the match eve, India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir remained coy over Rohit Sharma’s inclusion, citing the pitch factor and adding to the intrigue. If you can read between the lines, for all practical purposes, Rohit’s race is run, after an average of 6.20 from five innings in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
“We are going to have a look at the wicket and finalise it (playing XI) tomorrow,” Gambhir said at the pre-match press conference, when asked about whether the captain was going to play. He had already confirmed that “everything is fine with Rohit”, fitness-wise.
Back in 1974-75, S Venkataraghavan was given India’s captaincy in the second Test against the West Indies in Delhi after Tiger Pataudi picked up an injury. As Pataudi returned for the third Test in Calcutta, Venkataraghavan was made to carry drinks. A few years later in 1979, as the Indian team was returning from England, the pilot announced mid-air that Venkataraghavan was sacked as captain. The current developments related to Rohit offer a throwback to the 1970s, when Indian cricket used to be a hotbed of gossip and intrigue.
And it doesn’t end with the skipper. Rishabh Pant, too, appears to be in the line of fire and according to sources, he is not an automatic pick for the final Test. Pant is considered to be a match-winner, but his mode of dismissals at the MCG has rubbed the team management the wrong way. In the first innings, after being hit in the midriff, he tried to play an outrageous lap against Scott Boland, ignoring the field settings — a fine-leg and a fly slip. He ended up being too clever by half. At the second dig, with the Test to be saved, Pant tried to clear the longest boundary in the world, perishing to part-time off-spinner Travis Head. On both occasions, the player’s ego got the better of him.
“Rishabh Pant obviously needs to understand what is required from himself,” Rohit said after the game. “More than any one of us telling him, it’s about him understanding and figuring out what’s the right way to go about it.”
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The captain wasn’t impressed. Far from it. And the dressing room leaks suggest the head coach didn’t take too kindly to Pant’s bohemian batting either. Cricket has a tendency to bite back if someone fails to respect the game. Even the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar at times had to eschew their egos for the sake of the team. Gavaskar, by his own admission, binned the hook shot for close to a decade, considering India’s porous batting line-up during the first-half of his career. Tendulkar shunned the cover drive on his way to 241 at the SCG in 2003-04. AB de Villiers had scored 43 off 297 balls on a Kotla Bunsen, trying to eke out a draw. ‘Playing his natural game’ is a fancy line, but in a team sport, playing the situation is far more important.
Pant has played several match-winning knocks — the Gabba in 2020-21 being his crowning glory. But he is not in his element in the current series, scoring just 154 runs from seven innings at an average of 22.00. More than his form, however, his attitude towards the game is under the scanner. If the 27-year-old is a keen student of cricket’s history, then he would know that the great Kapil Dev was dropped for less — a slog in the Delhi Test against England in 1984-85, forcing his ouster from the next Test in Calcutta.
As India trained at the SCG on Thursday, Pant stood behind the stumps, while Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Yashasvi Jaiswal formed the slip cordon. Rohit was conspicuous by his absence in that drill. Dhruv Jurel, meanwhile, had a couple of sessions at the nets.
Will Gambhir crack the whip and drop Pant? Then again, the way things have been transpiring, the southpaw is a subplot in the main story. The focus is firmly on his skipper and the team selection would be a clear giveaway about who is the boss in the dressing room.
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