Spinner Nathan Lyon has sledged KL Rahul after the bat came out at No.3 during India’s batting innings at the MCG. Lyon humoursly what did KL Rahul do wrong to be shifted down to No.3 in the batting order.
Rahul has done well as an opener on the tour of Australia but has shifted one place to make way for India captain Rohit Sharma.
Indian captain who was batting at no.6 to accommodate Rahul in the opening spot decided to shift up to his natural position after failures in the Adelaide and Brisbane Tests.
However, the shift did not work out for India was dismissed after playing just 5 balls. Rohit failed after scoring 3 runs and was sent out on Pat Cummins’s delivery and was dismissed after top-edging the ball.
Facing a short-of-length delivery outside off, Rohit tried a pull shot which resulted in a top edge with Boland caught the ball.
Completing a straightforward catch to send Rohit back to the pavilion. Meanwhile Rohit Sharma now has a disappointing 3,6,10 and 3.
Rohit’s struggles against Cummins in Test cricket have become a recurring theme, with the statistics painting a stark picture of his challenges.
Rohit has faced 199 deliveries scoring just 127 runs while being dismissed seven times by Cummins in 13 innings. At his dismissal former cricketer Ricky Ponting has slammed Rohit Sharma for his poor shot selection during Boxing day test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy.
“That’s just a lazy, not switched on, not up for the moment type of shot,” said Ricky Ponting. “He’s been known as one of the best hookers and pullers of the ball since he’s made his debut but that’s just not there.
On the other hand, KL Rahul seemed to be promising being a defined player in Australia-India tests. Rahul was dismissed with an outswinger when the batter was looking steady at 24 runs off 41 balls.
After KL Rahul’s dismissal for 24 runs by cummins, India struggled once again with top order woes. However, Kohli-Jaiswal Partnership recovered India, but did not last long.
They made a 100 run partnership before being dismissed for 82 and 36 runs respectively. India and Australia secured one victory each in the Perth and Adelaide test while the Gabba test resulted in a tie. The visitors secured a 295-run victory in Perth while Australia secured a 10 wicket victory in Adelaide.
India’s win in the ongoing match is crucial for their WTC finals run as they stands third in the WTC points table.
The Visitors scored only 165/5 with Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja at the crease by the end of day 02 at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
