Former Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batter Mohammad Kaif has shared his views on Rohit Sharma’s golden duck in the fourth ODI against New Zealand, which the hosts won by a whopping 244-run margin on Friday, November 13.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Kaif said that Rohit often tends to play without proper foot movement, which results in his dismissals, adding that in his entire career, he has been dismissed many times to the in-between length in the very first over across formats.
“This happens very often with Rohit Sharma. He has had a good year. But his feet were planted on a pitch where there was movement on offer. The ball was on the shorter side compared to Virat Kohli, Ishan Kishan, and Shreyas Iyer. He did not go completely back nor commit forward. He played without moving his feet. In his entire career, irrespective of the format, he has been out many times to that in-between length in the first over,” Kaif said on his YouTube channel.
Further, Kaif expressed his disappointment at team management for not including the experienced campaigner Mohammed Siraj in the playing XI. He went on to add that Siraj could make the ball talk even on flat pitches.
“It is a bit of a surprise that a bowler like Mohammed Siraj is part of the squad but is not playing. In the first ODI, we thought that he was given rest to recover after having played red-ball matches. He is not playing after that either,” he added.
“Nabi, Anshul Kamboj, or even Gurnoor Brar need some help off the pitch. Nabi got the ball to move in the overcast conditions in the first two ODIs. But when the sun is shining and conditions are better for batting, he still needs to learn a bit more. You have a well-trained player in Siraj with you who has grown up playing in flat conditions,” he concluded.
