England gun fast bowler Mark Wood has picked India’s ODI captain Rohit Sharma as the most difficult batter he has bowled to in his career. Wood said he always got the feeling that Rohit’s bat kept getting wider.
The English pacer is known to breathe down the neck of the opposition batters with his extra pace but he said Rohit was always unstoppable on the short-pitched deliveries as he is regarded as one of the best pullers of the game.
Mark Wood said on Overlap Cricket YouTube Channel, “Yeah, in different stages of my career, I would say Rohit Sharma. Difficult because against the short ball, you feel like you, for myself, I’ve got a chance of getting him out, but also if he’s on that day, he smokes it. So, he was difficult. I always felt like his bat was big, just kept getting wider.”
On the other hand, Wood also picked Virat Kohli as a difficult batter to bowl to unless they bowled at the fourth-fifth stump line to the veteran batter. Kohli was continuously troubled by the outside off-stump line towards the fag end of his Test career.
“Kohli, obviously. Unbelievable competitor, someone that I felt you have this weakness of fourth, fifth stump drag him in. We seem to never miss him when I bowl him there. So, that was difficult,” he added.
Wood dismissed Rohit on five occasions across formats whereas he got rid of Virat Kohli once.
Meanwhile, Wood said it is imperative to hold one’s nerve while bowling to dangerous Risabh Pant as the left-hander is unpredictable.
Wood added, “I think you’ve got to hold your nerve. That’s basically what I would say. It’s because I think you kind of be so unpredictable that then that plays into his hands that he can just stand there and he waits for anything difficult. But if you’re the same all the time, then he can, he’s got such a good eye, he sort of hits it where he wants.”
“So, I think you’ve got to have a mixture of hold your nerve to maybe the old ball that’s a bit unpredictable, whether it’s a slower ball or you might change up with a really high bouncer or a fast yorker like something slightly different,” he added.
Wood has dismissed Rishabh Pant on a single occasion across all formats.
