Manjrekar pulls no punches, orders Agarkar to ignore Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma's 'stature': 'Don't rest the well-rested'
The series loss to New Zealand suddenly made critics and fans start pointing fingers at Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's performances.
Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar slammed the BCCI selectors for allowing senior stars Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to miss the Duleep Trophy while the young players participated in it ahead of the Bangladesh Tests. The two stalwarts of Indian cricket—Rohit and Kohli—have been under the scanners after their underwhelming performances in the home Test seasons against Bangladesh and New Zealand. The series loss to New Zealand suddenly made critics and fans start pointing fingers at Rohit and Kohli's forms.
In these five home Tests, Rohit has scored 133 runs at an underwhelming average of 13.30, with a half-century in 10 innings. His best score is 52.
On the other hand, Virat's numbers are slightly better than his skipper's, but still nothing encouraging as his spin woes have gotten worse. In five Tests, he has scored 192 runs in 10 innings at an average of 21.33, with just one fifty. His scores during this home season were: 6, 17, 47, 29*, 0, 70, 1, 17, 4 and 1.
Manjrekar shared a hard-hitting message for Ajit Agarkar and other members of the selection committee to net rest the rested players from domestic cricket because of their big stature.
"The big learning for the selectors from this home season is that do not rest the already well rested players because of their stature," Manjrekar wrote on X.
Rohit looked in a rush throughout the home season and often lost his wicket while playing attacking shots early in the innings, while Kohli struggled against the spinners on a turning track and failed to make any impact.
‘Rohit & Virat would have benefited from playing Duleep Trophy’
Meanwhile, Manjrekar asserted that if the star duo had agreed to play in the Duleep Trophy at the start of the season, then things would have been different for them.
"I say this again, both Rohit & Virat would only have benefited from playing the Duleep Trophy start of the season," he concluded.
The embarrassing 0-3 whitewash from New Zealand's hands has put India in a tricky position in the World Test Championship points table. The five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy has become extremely crucial for India as only a massive win in the series would help the Asian Giants secure their third-successive ICC World Test Championship final appearance at Lord's next year.
