India vs England 2024

Monty Panesar slams Rohit Sharma captaincy for India’s defeat in first Test match against England

In the ongoing five-match Test series between India and England. England has taken a 1-0 lead in the Test series. The whole cricket world has hailed Ben Stokes’ England team after the incredible comeback, which saw them battle back from an innings defeat to win the first Test against India in Hyderabad.

Monty Panesar has stated that Rohit Sharma’s captaincy was clueless in the first Test match against England. Rohit Sharma failed to score big with bat in both innings.

“It is a very big victory, no one even imagined this was even possible. Everyone thought that England would lose after a 190 deficit, but Ollie Pope had a brilliant inning, one of the best innings we have seen in a long time and Rohit Sharma was clueless,” Monty Panesar told ANI.

India failed to control the flow of runs in the second innings, and the middle-order batting collapsed under pressure, but Panesar believes the most significant miss for Rohit Sharma and his team was the absence of their great batsman, Virat Kohli. Except for the veteran KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal, Indian batters had little effect on the game throughout four days.

Rohit Sharma failed to take leadership of the game – Monty Panesar

Monty Panesar stated that Virat Kohli‘s aggressive attitude to the game and relentless pressure on the opposition was much missed by the Indian team.

“If Virat Kohli had been playing, he would have confronted these England guys and said, ‘Hey, do it again, let’s show how good you are. This is an England squad that isn’t afraid of losing, and they don’t mind losing. “They (England) would continue to play without fear of failure for the next four games,” Panesar remarked.

Panesar feels that Indian captain Rohit Sharma failed to take leadership of the game when he was supposed to put pressure on the England side and not give them any ‘freedom’ to play easily. Panesar feels that England’s victory in the first Test will boost the team’s chances of winning the series.