Former England opener Alastair Cook has heaped high praise on Indian opener, Rohit Sharma, stating that the stylish batsman is here to stay in red-ball cricket for a considerable period of time.
Cook’s comments have come after Rohit Sharma produced a masterclass in how to play spin bowling on a raging turner. The Indian opener took the aggressive route on a wicket that was giving a lot of assistance to the spinners and scored 161 priceless runs at a strike-rate of over 70.
Alastair Cook reckoned while Rohit may not be as attacking as Virender Sehwag, the Mumbai cricketer certainly belongs to the same school of batsmanship.
“He is a little bit more attacking than I was. He is not quite Sehwag in terms of that kind of attack he (Sehwag) is probably is one of the most attacking and successful opening batsmen. Rohit is probably in the next tier of aggressiveness but he looked so controlled. In that innings, he wanted to attack when he wanted, everything looked quite controlled,” Alastair Cook said on BBC Test Match Special.
The former England captain that given the fact that Rohit Sharma likes to seal the initiative by taking the attack to the opposition bowlers, he is a world-class batsman in subcontinental conditions.
“The only obvious issue with Rohit is that line outside the off-stump, the way he got out in the first innings of the 1st Test match. His record away from home isn’t great. That’s where you need to target him but obviously, this pitch doesn’t have that pace,” Alastair Cook added.
“In these conditions, he looked absolutely world class. His stats in India averaging over 50 shows that.” he said.
Alastair Cook further added that ever since Rohit Sharma has started opening in Test match cricket, he has become a lot more consistent.
The former England cricketer reckoned that Rohit is here to stay for a considerable period of time as the Indian team-management loves having a player of his capability, the very same capability that he displayed during the first innings of the ongoing Test.
“… Also, when he has played, he wasn’t that consistent to start with. Also, the Indian selectors make changes if he was English, maybe he would have been given a longer run,” Cook added. “He has only just started opening. He has batted a lot in the middle order. Only in the last little bit he has taken his one-day opening role, he has obviously opened a lot in one-day, into the red-ball (format),” Cook added.
“He is here to stay for a while. They like having him in the squad and he is in the team for that all-round package — Clearly his runs and the manner he gets his runs, if he gets in, he is going to do what he has done today (more often),” he said.
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