Indian captain Rohit Sharma has backed the all-rounder duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja to play a key role in the rest of the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia. The veteran pair were dropped from the opening Test match at Perth as Washington Sundar was picked ahead of them. Sundar bagged 2-48 in the second innings and it would be interesting to note if he retains his place in the team.
Rohit, who missed the opening Test for the birth of his second child, said Ashwin and Jadeja are quality players and it would be silly to write them off as they have all the experience under their belt.
Meanwhile, Ashwin could only take nine wickets in three Test matches against New Zealand at an average of 41.22 whereas Jadeja bagged 16 wickets at an average of 21.56.
Rohit Sharma said in the pre-match press conference, “Unfortunately, I was not there to bring this news to them, that they’re not playing the first game. But it is always hard to leave experienced players like Jadeja and Ashwin. It’s never easy. But I think the decision was made (keeping in mind) whatever was best for the team at that particular time and whatever the management felt at that particular time is the right thing to do we did that, and that is I think what, throughout the series, we will look to do. Whatever we feel at that particular time is the right thing to do, we’ll try and do that.”
“I certainly see them playing a huge role in the rest of the series because you know what they bring to the table will never be written off because they are quality players and they have whatever success Indian cricket has had over the past few years is largely because of these two guys as well. It’s important for us to realize certain grounds here will bring certain players in the game a lot more so we have to try and do that and whatever suits the team the best, we will try and make those decisions based on what we see in front of us.”
The second Test match between Australia and India, which will be a pink-ball game, will be played at Adelaide Oval from December 6 onwards.
