Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma wants the Indian batters to reach Indore early and practice on the pitches. India’s batting hasn’t been at its absolute best in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar series against Australia.
KL Rahul has struggled at the top of the order while Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Suryakumar Yadav, and Shreyas Iyer have also failed to contribute. In fact, except for Rohit Sharma, all the Indian batters haven’t been able to deliver the goods consistently.
Vital contributions have come down the order from Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, and Ravichandran Ashwin. Meanwhile, the Indore pitch is expected to be slightly better for batting.
“The Indian batters should reach Indore early and practice on those wickets,” Rajkumar Sharma said on India News Sports. “This will give them a clear idea of how the pitch is going to behave here. It is likely that Australia will continue playing with three spinners. The batters can keep that in mind and prepare accordingly.”
On the other hand, Saba Karim admitted that India’s batting has been weak in the last few years and they will need to step up.
“There is still some scope for improvement in India’s batting. The pitches that were used in the first two Tests weren’t in any way unplayable ones. You can score runs on such surfaces, and our lower middle order has proved that. Our top order struggled even during the Bangladesh tour, where we won the second match because of Ravichandran Ashwin’s batting.
“This shows that the performance of the top order is a concern. When we talk about preparing for the WTC final, we must acknowledge that our batting has been quite weak.”
Meanwhile, Rajkumar Sharma wants the batters to take more responsibility and deliver the goods for the team.
He elaborated: “There hasn’t been a lot of talk about our top order as we have taken a 2-0 lead in the series. The conditions have been difficult for batting, but if our all-rounders can score runs, then why can’t our top order batters?
“The batters need to take on more responsibility because we all know that they are capable of doing well here. Barring Rohit Sharma’s hundred, we haven’t seen any big knocks from our top order. I believe that all our players are very mature, and they know that they need to score big runs.”
The third Test match of the series will be played in Indore from March 1.
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