Former India player Aakash Chopra has said that Rohit Sharma’s numbers in important games like ICC knockout games etc. Rohit has scored a 28-ball 27 in India’s T20 World Cup semifinal defeat against England on Thursday in Adelaide. The team set a below-par 169-run target for England and eventually lost by ten wickets.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra opined on the performances of some of India’s top players on the big stage since their win in the 2013 Champions Trophy.
Regarding Rohit Sharma, he said: “Rohit Sharma’s numbers trouble you slightly. We went deep to see where the problems exist, whether it is the story only in ICC events or elsewhere also. We went through the IPL knockout games as well to check where the numbers are going bad.”
The former India player also shared that the captain had poor shows in knockout games between 2014 and 2016.
He elaborated: “2014 World Cup semi-final – 24 runs, and 29 runs in the final. 34 runs in the 2015 ODI World Cup semifinal. The 2016 T20 World Cup semifinal was good – scored 43 runs off 31 balls.”
Chopra has also shared Rohit’s indifferent performances in knockout games in the last five years as well.
He said: “Champions Trophy – 0, 2019 ODI World Cup semi-final – 1. He scored five centuries in that, the entire World Cup was his but scored only one run in the semifinal. Thirty-odd in both innings of the WTC final and here (2022 semifinal) he scored 27 runs.”
Rohit was the highest run-getter in the 2019 ODI World Cup with 648 runs, including five centuries in the league phase. However, he managed to score just one run in the semifinal defeat to New Zealand, where he was caught behind off Matt Henry as well.
While talking about Rohit Sharma’s international numbers in crucial games, Aakash Chopra further added that the Mumbai Indians captain hasn’t excelled in the Indian Premier League (IPL) as well in knockout games as well.
“It means he hasn’t scored a half-century in any knockout game, whichever he has played since 2014. That’s a worrying bit. If we see IPL knockout games, it is a huge list, we went till 2009, and I am seeing only two half-centuries – one in the 2015 final and the other in the 2020 final which they won,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
Chopra again stated that although Rohit Sharma is a big player, the truth is that he does not score many runs in knockout games. He also picked Ravichandran Ashwin as another top player whose numbers have fallen drastically in recent ICC knockout games as well.
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