He may not have been closely working with Rohit Sharma. He is not even a part of the support staff of any team that Rohit is part of. But having been India’s batting coach for five years, Sanjay Bangar, the Royal Challengers Bangalore head coach, is definitely an authority to speak about Rohit, the batter.
Despite the Mumbai Indians captain continuing his lull in the Indian Premier League having been dismissed for his fifth consecutive single-digit score, against RCB on Tuesday, Bangar hoped it will not have a bearing on the World Test Championship final.
“He (Rohit) has been playing for such a long period of time and captaining in all formats for India and the franchisee as well, it does take an emotional toll. It is mentally taxing as well,” Bangar said.
“But he knows it, he has done it for such a long time. For the sake of Mumbai Indians and the sake of Indian cricket, we just hope that he returns to his run-scoring normal routine. It is very important for us (India) that he fires and does really well in the World Test Championship final.”
Bangar, though, couldn’t really pinpoint the reasons for RCB’s Indian batters’ lack of success this season. Barring Virat Kohli, none of the half-a-dozen Indian batters it has tried out have been able to deliver the goods so far.
“We were built in such a way wherein Maxwell, Faf, Virat and Dinesh were going to be the fulcrum of the batting unit and the younger players would play around them,” Bangar said.
“They are not progressing at a very good rate. Our younger batter Mahipal Lomror has been the one who has taken his chances well but Anuj Rawat and Shahbaz Ahmed, whenever they have gotten those opportunities, unfortunately, they haven’t been able to capitalise on it.
“But that’s the learning. You have to be patient with the younger players and expect that they will take their opportunities and churn out match-winning performances for the team.”
Comments
SHARE