Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma returned to international cricket after a gap of seven months in the first ODI against Australia in Perth but they couldn’t quite hit the ground runnung. Rohit, playing for the first time since Shubman Gill replaced him as India’s ODI captain, fell after scoring eight runs while Kohli then fell for an eight-ball duck. Batting Sunil Gavaskar has said that he is not too surprised by the veteran pair failing to fire considering this is their first game of competitive cricket in over four months overall.
After their last international game, 38-year-old Rohit and 36-year-old Kohli played for their respective teams in the IPL which ended in June. “They were playing on probably the bounciest pitch in Australia,” said Gavaskar on India Today. “It wasn’t going to be easy, especially for players who haven’t played international cricket for a couple of months. It was challenging for Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, who usually play international cricket quite regularly,” he said.
India went on to lose the first ODI by seven wickets and trail the three-match series 1-0. However, Gavaskar is confident that India can confident, as can Kohli and Rohit. “India are still a very, very good team. They have won the Champions Trophy. Don’t be surprised if Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli score big in the next two games. They are coming back after a few months away from international cricket. The more they play, the more they spend time in the nets, the more throwdowns they get, maybe even from the reserve bowlers bowling at them from 20 yards instead of 22, the quicker they will find their rhythm. Once they are back among the runs, India’s total will be 300, 300-plus,” he added.
Apart from Rohit and Kohli, Gill also fell within the first 10 overs. The Indian captain later said that the team never really recovered from that blow in the rain-curtailed match. “Never easy, when you lose three wickets in the powerplay, you’re always trying to play catch up. There were a lot of learnings and positives as well,” said Gill after the match, which was reduced to a 26-overs-a-side contest.
