Ahead of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, India captain Rohit Sharma has supported star batter Virat Kohli to stage a comeback in the remainder of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series against Australia.
Kohli, who has batted a hundred in the second innings in Perth, has faced a sequence of low scores of 7, 11, and 3 in the following three innings.
“Modern-day greats will figure out their own way of (carving out their) path,” said the skipper when asked about Kohli’s form at the press conference in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Rohit, who dropped down to the middle order himself, has managed to add just 19 runs in the last two Tests. He did not feature in the opening Test because his second child was born then. He also failed in the three-Test home series against New Zealand that India lost 3-0 and spoiled their hope to make the World Test Championship final.
With the five-match series tied at 1-1, India have a mountainous task to win the last two Tests to play the championship final at Lord's next year. In the tour so far, it has been India's batting that has been a cause of concern rather than their bowling. The opening combination of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal has pushed Rohit to bat late in the middle order, which might be the case behind his poor outings in Adelaide and Brisbane.
However, Rohit acknowledged their batting order struggle but did not open up much on announcing any change and left it for the match day.
"Let's not worry about who bats where. (It is) something that we need to figure (out) and not something (that) I would be discussing here. We will do what is best for the team," Rohit said in the pre-match press conference.
Rohit faced an injury scare on Sunday when the 37-year-old batter was struck on his left knee by a delivery from throwdown specialist Daya during India's second practice session at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. This session was in preparation for the fourth Test against Australia, set to begin on December 26 at the same venue.
Despite continuing to bat briefly after the incident, Rohit needed medical attention shortly afterwards. However he dispelled all fears on his fitness and said he was absolutely fine and fully prepared for the Boxing Day Test. "It's fine," said Rohit when asked of his fitness.
"Nothing has changed since I last spoke about it. We've had two sessions and in those sessions, what can change?" Rohit added when asked about the need to adapt to new conditions at practice.
Those pitches in which we trained for the last couple of days were used pitches. Perhaps they were used for Big Bash. Now, today is the only day where we are going to get the other side of it, which will be a fresher wicket. So, we will go and see how it is and train accordingly.
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