Rohit Sharma has a decorated ODI career, where he has won multiple laurels for his team. However, something similar cannot be said about his Test career. He led the Test team briefly and had a disappointing time at it before he finally decided to retire from the format in June.
Rohit lost the Test series against New Zealand at home as captain. He then skipped the first Test at Perth against Australia, which India won by 295 runs with Jasprit Bumrah leading the side.
Eventually, after scoring just 31 runs in five innings in the series against Australia, Rohit Sharma voluntarily opted out of the fifth Test in Sydney. Bumrah led the team once again in that match, but sadly, Australia won the match by six wickets and won the series 4-1. The series loss was a massive dent on the hopes of India reaching the WTC 2025 final, which they ultimately did not.
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People Said We Supported Rohit Sharma More Than Necessary - Irfan Pathan
Rohit Sharma averaged a meagre 6.20 in the series against Australia. Irfan Pathan said that had Rohit not been the skipper of the team, he would have been benched for the entire series.
“Rohit Sharma is an amazing player in white-ball cricket, but his average in Test cricket that year was 6, so we said that if he was not the captain, he would not have had a place in the team, and this is true,” Pathan said.
Pathan, in an exclusive interview with Lallantop, said that commentators and former cricketers were compelled to show support for Rohit Sharma despite his low returns in the series.
"People say that we supported Rohit Sharma more than necessary. Of course, when someone comes to interview on your broadcasting channel, you will not misbehave with them, right? You have invited him, so you will behave politely. When Rohit came to interview, we were, of course, polite, and we had to show that, because he was our guest. So that was connected and said we were supporting him, but it was we who said...we had said that he should keep fighting, but that said, he should not have had a place in the playing XI. If he was not the captain of the team, he would have been dropped," he said.
Rohit Sharma Scored Just 164 Runs In 8 Tests, Averaged 6.20 AGainst Australia
Rohit’s struggles in Test cricket last year can be judged from the fact that he scored just 164 runs across eight Test matches against Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia with a single half-century. He averaged 6.20, which is the lowest-ever by a visiting Test captain in Australia.
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