Rohit Sharma is sucking the momentum out of India

[G_B_]

People who will see the stats of yesterdays/todays match will tell you that Rohit Sharma appears to have done well. A strike rate of 84. But the fact remains he was so slow in the first 10 that Kohli and Rahane IMO perished to shots trying to up the rate. Now as for Dhawan and Rahane. IMO both deserved to be dropped. Rahane me thinks has now had a fair crack at the ODI whip and its not working out for him in this format. Keep him to tests and T20s where he has a good record in the ipl and champions trophy. Fundamentally though Rohit Sharma is going to end up destroying the careers of his opening partners. Always his selfish and slow innings keep piling pressure on the other batsman. Whoever India pick as an opener alongside Sharma. Good luck.

[tweaker]

Try Jadeja as opener in the 5 ODI.

[G_B_]

I would seriously consider trying the Rahane-Dhawan combo as a last try. We have already lost the series. Whats typical of Sharma is block block block block block block block six block block block block. So he denies the batsman at the other end strike for such a long period of time in the opening 10 that they simply are left frustrated.

[rkt.india]

People who will see the stats of yesterdays/todays match will tell you that Rohit Sharma appears to have done well. A strike rate of 84. But the fact remains he was so slow in the first 10 that Kohli and Rahane IMO perished to shots trying to up the rate. Now as for Dhawan and Rahane. IMO both deserved to be dropped. Rahane me thinks has now had a fair crack at the ODI whip and its not working out for him in this format. Keep him to tests and T20s where he has a good record in the ipl and champions trophy. Fundamentally though Rohit Sharma is going to end up destroying the careers of his opening partners. Always his selfish and slow innings keep piling pressure on the other batsman. Whoever India pick as an opener alongside Sharma. Good luck.

Arey Bhai, why you want to score really quickly in first 10 overs. Rather then keeping wickets in hand. You can score anything in last 15 if you have wickets in hand. He always takes time early on to settle but once he settled, he mostly makes up. I do not think you can blame Kohli and Rahane getting out to Rohit. Why did Kohli struggle and got out in the last match too when we were 66 in 9 overs, did Rohit force him to do that?

[G_B_]

Dude we were something like 25 in the first 10 overs. On that pitch imo its fair to be going at 5 runs per over in the first 10. Thats what Nz have been doing all along. Kohli has a history of playing big knocks at pace. Rohit has a plethora of slow innings. What happens is with Rohit if your partner at the other end is not is sensational form. He cannot rely on Rohit to up the ante. Sooner or later Kohli is going to have a dip. Thats when you expect the likes of Sharma to step up. Kohli went for that shot because i think India were 7 runs in 5 odd overs.

[BlueBee]

Arey Bhai' date=' why you want to score really quickly in first 10 overs. Rather then keeping wickets in hand. You can score anything in last 10 if you have wickets in hand. He always takes time early on to settle but once he settled, he mostly makes up. I do not think you can blame Kohli and Rahane getting out to Rohit. Why did Kohli struggle and got in the last match too when we were 66 in 9 overs, did Rohit force him to do that?[/quote'] Agree :hatsoff:

[kubrickian]

Its okay to have a slow start as long as you can make up for it later, which he did. Its not easy to just start scoring right away in these conditions sometimes as there tends to be some swing or seam movement with the new ball. Its important to keep wickets in hand for later overs. Rohit did a good job today. After losing two early wickets, you need to consolidate which was what Rayudu and Rohit did. If another wicket fell at that point, we would have struggled to reach 200 with lack of batting depth in the lineup today.

[rkt.india]

Dude we were something like 25 in the first 10 overs. On that pitch imo its fair to be going at 5 runs per over in the first 10. Thats what Nz have been doing all along. Kohli has a history of playing big knocks at pace. Rohit has a plethora of slow innings. What happens is with Rohit if your partner at the other end is not is sensational form. He cannot rely on Rohit to up the ante. Sooner or later Kohli is going to have a dip. Thats when you expect the likes of Sharma to step up. Kohli went for that shot because i think India were 7 runs in 5 odd overs.

We were 25 in 10 overs because we lost 2 quick wickets. IF we had not lost those wickets even if we were 25/2 in first 10 overs, we could have easily made up for that in rest 40. You can easily score 300 in those 40. If the first 10 overs when our batsmen are most fragile. Look in recent past, we have done well, whenever we had a good steady opening stand with Dhawan and Rohit. We rarely have had real blistering starts.

[rkt.india]

One needs to play his own game rather than worrying or thinking too much about how other one is playing. Play every ball on its merit.

[BlueBee]

Yes, you can start slowly in the first 10 overs, but should make up after that, which Rohit did. And I think he played brilliantly today. 79 off 94 which is pretty good.

[skindia]

Though rohit did well today he always makes slow start and gifts his wicket after making 10-20 what should to that time.....it looks good only if he scores 70+

[skindia]

and he gets dropped chances in every matches despite playing slow...very risky player

[Detonator]

For this match I agree with rkt, but I have to agree with G_B_ as well for the first 2 mathes in SA and NZ. He isn't suited to open, but he can anchor the innings on no.4, if a couple of wickets fall quickly. His innings will be viewed much differently if he scored the same runs coming @ 4.

[CG]

:hysterical: Have u seen indias opening starts in sa on previous tours we always have struggled even with great players like sachin and ganguly,sehwag.Its not easy to go and get going .We did well in ct and wi triseries as we had decent starts with dhawan attacking and rohit anchoring the innings. When we go abroad keeping wickets is must as we can bring dhoni in to the game at endovers.

[SLICKR392]

Totally agreed with G_B here. He sucked out all the momentum in the first 10 overs. The difference of this game could be easily be the first 10 overs of both the sides. Even though our previous openers din't score many boundaries, they ran single. Gambhr-Sehwag, Sachin-Sehwag,Ganguly. Rohit is just uber rubbish in the first 10-20.

[South_Paw]

Unless we get atleast one blasting opener, we will suck big time. Rohit Sharma will make up at the later stages for the balls he wasted in the beginning. But once in 15 matches he last until the 'later stages'. In sall the remaining matches he will only screw up the team. Yes, we won the matches where Dhawan and Rohit made a slow and steady start. But that was always becuase of the guy at one down who scored 100's at 150+ strike rate in all those matches. If he had failed, none could have done anything with the 'slow and steady' start of our openers.

[saneindian]

Yeah right and Rahane by scoring 49 runs in 4 matches batting at 3/4 is providing us all the momentum. One short ball and you go for a hook/pull without settling down, blame it on your over eagerness not the player at the other end. Kuch bhi

[Detonator]

:hysterical: Have u seen indias opening starts in sa on previous tours we always have struggled even with great players like sachin and ganguly,sehwag.Its not easy to go and get going .We did well in ct and wi triseries as we had decent starts with dhawan attacking and rohit anchoring the innings. When we go abroad keeping wickets is must as we can bring dhoni in to the game at endovers.

He also kept his legendary record of one 50+ score every 10 matches. :two_thumbs_up:

[South_Paw]

Our one day laurels were always because of the blasting opening that we got from Sachin and Sehwag for the past 15 years. You accept or not, unless we are going to get any such openers again, we will suck for sure baring the matches played on indian highwats where even Venkatesh Prasad would score a 50 at S.R. 100.

[GautiMaan]

Hope they bring back skindia.