Indian skipper Rohit Sharma returned to play Ranji Trophy after many years but his outings in Mumbai’s match against Jammu and Kashmir brought no relief to his perpetual struggle in the longest format of the game. Rohit’s trademark aggressive intent didn’t churn out any positive result as he only registered 31 runs across both innings.
Even, Shreyas Iyer couldn’t maintain his composure, losing his wicket without making any notable impact. But, Shardul Thakur and Tanush Kotian were careful in their approach, playing magnificent innings. However, their partnership could not save Mumbai from suffering a defeat. Reacting to Rohit Sharma and other players’ aggressive approach, former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar questioned their intent.
"The dismissal of Mumbai's Test batters once again brought to the fore the perils of the all-out aggressive mode of batting that is nowadays thought of as being central to run-making. It can work on flat pitches, but on pitches where the ball is doing something, there has to be a technique good enough to keep out the good delivery," Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.
"There are more chances of a dismissal while looking to play in a manner that one is not used to, as was seen in the recent Sydney Test [between India and Australia] when rushes of blood caused some silly-looking dismissals. A bit of common sense and patience, rather than a fatalistic approach, could have gotten another 50 runs, and that could well have altered the result of the match and the series," he added
Recently, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made it mandatory for centrally contracted players to participate in Ranji Trophy. Following the diktat, players like Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal turned up for their respective teams.
"Whether their hearts were in it or they did that only to ensure they were not stripped of their BCCI contracts, like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were, after missing out on the Ranji Trophy games last year, is known only to them. Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s participation meant that Ayush Mhatre, who had got a couple of hundreds and some fifties, had to be left out of the Mumbai side. Hopefully, the youngster would have spent some time with both these players and picked their brains about adding to his batting ability," he noted.