Rohit Sharma has been the biggest talking point of India’s current tour of South Africa with the right-handed batsman first failing to justify the team management’s decision of picking him ahead of vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane in the first two Test matches and then going cheaply in all four one-day internationals.
But this is not the first time that Rohit has struggled in South Africa. The 30-year-old, who has three double centuries to his name in ODIs, has managed just 126 runs in his 12 matches in the country with the highest score of 23. In the Tests, the Mumbaikar has fared no better, scoring just 123 runs in four Tests at an average of 15.37 runs.
And former South African skipper Kepler Wessels insists that Rohit does not have the technique to succeed in seaming conditions.
“He will always struggle to score runs in SA because of his footwork. He plants his front foot across to the off-side and in SA, the pitches always seam and bounce a bit. This is the reason that he averages around 10 there,” Wessels told The Times of India in an interview.
“He’ll always struggle there because of his technique. It doesn’t affect him in India and even in Australia because the ball doesn’t seam there, it just bounces, but when you have seam and bounce, with that technique, he’s got a problem,” he added.
Well, among those who have batted at the top seven spots in South Africa, Rohit Sharma’s average of 11.45 is the worst by any specialist batsman in ODIs.
