Aakash Chopra has questioned Team India’s rigidity to play with five bowlers in overseas Test matches. After India’s shocking 1-2 series defeat to South Africa, the batting unite is facing a lot of backlash for their underwhelming show throughout the tour. In the six innings, India managed to post 300-plus runs just once that too in the first innings of the series opener. India stuck with their five frontline bowlers strategy against South Africa despite continuous batting failure.
Chopra asked why Team India is so adamant with their five-bowling policy despite batting misfiring consistently in the past few series.
“If your batting is misfiring consistently, then why are you so rigid? Why are you so adamant that you will play five bowlers always, along with five batters and Rishabh Pant. Rishabh Pant did score a century in the last innings, but his performance was okay-okay before that,” Chopra said on his Youtube channel.
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KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant were the only batters to score centuries in the recently concluded Test series while senior batters Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane’s continued to struggle with the bat.
Chopra termed India’s current policy as stubbornness for not being ready to play the sixth batter in the XI.
“Rahane is not scoring runs; Pujara is not scoring runs; Kohli has not scored a century, but still, we play five batters. We are not at all ready to play a sixth batter. I mean this was slight stubbornness that we will do like this only,” he added.
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The former cricketer turned commentator further feels it’s not necessary to play the fifth bowling option if the pitch has assistance for the bowlers.
“What happened even after doing this? The total idea of this was that even if your team scores 200-225, you have five bowlers, and you will save that but you could not do that. Eventually, you need runs. When there is help in the pitch, and the opposing side’s batting is slightly weak, you don’t need five bowlers,” he added.
“You can manage with four bowlers and play an extra batter, but the team said they will not play even if Kohli and Rohit are not there. But when you look back, you will feel that the strategy misfired, and you became a bit too stubborn,” he said.
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