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'That's the Rohit Sharma we know': India opener's upper cut six impresses Gavaskar, Manjrekar - video
Rohit Sharma’s upper cut for six impressed former cricketers Sunil Gavaskar, Sanjay Manjrekar and Mike Atherton who were in the commentary box.
There was a glimpse of the white-ball Rohit Sharma on Day 3 of the third Test between India and England at Headingley in Leeds. Rohit played an upper cut off Ollie Robinson that flew over the slips and laded over the ropes to give India their first six of the match on Friday.
It happened in the 16th over of India’s second innings in the morning session when Robinson pitched it short but dropped it outside the off stump. Rohit made use of that width and just guided that ball over the slips for the maximum.
Rohit’s shot impressed former cricketers Sunil Gavaskar, Sanjay Manjrekar and Mike Atherton who were in the commentary box.
“That’s the Rohit Sharma we know,” said Manjrekar.
“Yes, that’s the white-ball Rohit Sharma. Did it quite deliberately, jumped up with the bounce and it was a safe shot,” added Gavaskar.
VIDEO: Rohit Sharma's upper cut for six off Robinson
Rohit (25 batting off 61 balls) was at the crease but Rahul (8 off 54 balls) faced some quality seam bowling before Jonny Bairstow pulled off an incredible one-handed stunner off Craig Overton (5-2-5-1) to hurt India, who still have to bat eight sessions (two days and two sessions).
India trailed by 320 runs at the break.
Earlier, Mohammed Shami (4/95 in 28 overs) and Jasprit Bumrah (2/59 in 27.2 overs) polished off the tail for the addition of just nine more runs to the overnight score as England finished their first essay at 432.
Rahul, in fact, also successfully took a DRS against a leg before decision off Ollie Robinson's (8-1-17-0) bowling, and the replays showed that the ball was missing the leg stump, much to the delight of the dressing room.
However, the exaggerated off the pitch movement and help from the cloud cover over the Headingley skyline meant that James Anderson (5-2-8-0) could get the ball to nip back in the air, and then, with a pronounced outward movement beat the outside edge time and again.
To the batsman's credit, he actually didn't dangle his bat towards the movement and hence didn't find an outside edge.
Scoring runs wasn't the easiest of jobs with all three England seamers hitting the deck on the tight off-stump channel but Rahul, after a first innings duck, looked more intent on taking care of his defence as he would keep the bat close to his body.
That was one of the reasons that the wicket taking edges off the first innings turned into luckless deliveries in the second till Overton induced him to play one that straightened and the edge flew to the second slip.
(With PTI inputs)
