Not at all fabulous for India on the beginning of the third day of the fourth Test against Australia in Melbourne really: Rohit Sharma’s team lost Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja in the first session of the day. So, the last specialist batter after India had gone five down on Day 2, Pant needed to make a great contribution, all eyes on him. Unfortunately he could score only 28 from 37 balls; a couple of boundaries and lucky escapes before falling to Scott Boland after trying a lap shot caught by Nathan Lyon.
Everyone was furious with Pant’s shot selection when India was in dire straits, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar.
“That is a terrible shot selection especially with the fielders placed where they were. He seems to have two ways of scoring either by hammering the ball over long on or looking to play these shots. Which means, at the Test level you can’t always score consistently. If he wants to bat this way, he can’t bat at no. 5 but lmaybe ower down the order. That means that he will score some runs here and there,” Sunil Gavaskar said on Star Sports.
“You see some of his fours there were edges through the slips. His 50-plus conversion rate is just 19 percent? Is that good enough for a no. 5?”
The overnighters Rishabh Pant and Ravidra Jadeja effectively reduced India to 244 for 7 before lunch on Day 3. India began the day with the score line at 164 for five and 310 runs in arrears. However, reduced it to 230.
When the lunch break was declared, Nitish Reddy and Washington Sundar were batting on 40 and 5 respectively. Pant scored 28 before losing his wicket to Scott Boland, and Jadeja was out for 1 due to LBW.
Comments are closed.