'Lazy' Rohit Sharma under fire for yet another batting failure as Ponting criticizes India captain, fans dismayed by lackluster shot choice

India faced a challenging start in their attempt to match Australia's formidable first-innings total of 474 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Surprisingly, captain Rohit Sharma, who had been struggling to find his form in recent matches, decided to promote himself to the top of the order but was quickly dismissed for just 3 runs.

India’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy campaign continues to be fraught with danger of spiralling out of control despite a strong winning start, as a bad morning where Australia’s tail managed to add on 160+ runs became worse as India found themselves 8-1 with Rohit’s dismissal to Pat Cummins early in the second innings.

It was another disappointing form of dismissal for Rohit, who half-pull half-flicked a nothing delivery from the Australian captain, lobbing a very simple catch straight into the air for Scott Boland to complete at midwicket. With plenty of pressure already being placed on Rohit’s captaincy and batting both, social media was quick to react to another failure as the Indian skipper’s struggles in the second half of 2024 continued.

India's middle order try to revive innings

Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul, who saw himself dropped to number three despite being India’s best batter this series while opening, began the reconstruction of the innings with a confident and comfortable partnership of 43. However, KL’s resistance was unplugged by a dream delivery by Cummins, who landed the ball on middle stump before the delivery held its line and knocked back the off stump on the last ball before tea was called.

India once again find themselves chasing the game after a couple of quick wickets in their opening new ball overs, and will need their remaining batters of Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, and Rishabh Pant to contribute in a significant fashion. With three all-rounders selected, the team won’t want too much pressure to come down to names such as Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, and Ravindra Jadeja, who although being very reliable batters in their own right, are still not full-time in that role.

Meanwhile, Rohit will want to put yet another cheap dismissal behind him and ensure that he gives a score of significance when India are asked to chase later on in this Test, with the fate of the match and the series potentially relying on his performance at the MCG.

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