Gautam Gambhir echoes Sourav Ganguly's opinion, wants Rohit Sharma to open in Tests
Gautam Gambhir agreed to Sourav Ganguly's opinion of opening the batting with Rohit Sharma in Test cricket in the upcoming series against South Africa.
With KL Rahul's bad form continuing in West Indies and Prithvi Shaw being unavailable, India are left with one steady opener in Mayank Agarwal. While the team management backed Rahul to stage a comeback in Windies, he failed to grab his opportunities and that has only allowed mounted further pressure on the Karnataka opener.
Rohit on the other hand, after a good World Cup, has been sitting on the bench as Hanuma Vihari and Ajinkya Rahane made full use of the opportunities in the Caribbean.
However, Ganguly had said earlier that Rohit is too good a player to sit on the bench and with Rahul struggling, India should look at Rohit to find a solution at the top of the order.
And, Gambhir also agreed to the opinion.
"I completely agree with Sourav Ganguly. India have experimented with their openers in the past. Virender Sehwag opened for India and so did Deep Dasgupta. Rohit is far better than Deep Dasgupta. If you give him six matches at home, I am sure he will be able to do well overseas. If you ask him to open straight away in overseas conditions, that will be difficult," Gautam Gambhir told Sports Tak.
"I will prefer Rohit over Rahul and have a youngster as a backup opener. How long can you persist with someone, it is unfair on someone who is scoring in domestic cricket.
"Rahul can comeback if he has the runs. If Rohit is there in the squad he should be in the playing XI as well else you can have someone else in the squad. If he doesn't play now, it will be difficult for him after a couple of years to play Test cricket again," Gambhir added.
Gambhir also added that India should throw him into the mix in India first as it will be difficult for him in swinging conditions at the top overseas. But, he believes that Rohit has the technique and experience to come good.
"It will be difficult to make the switch. Red ball swings more but Rohit has that technique and experience. He knows how to play the new ball. But you have to give him a fair run. You did try with Yuvraj in one Test but I hope that doesn't happen with Rohit. You never know he could be the X factor for this team," Gambhir said.
Rohit has so far played 27 Tests, scoring 1585 runs at an average of 39.62. He has scored 3 centuries and 10 fifties so far in the longest format of the game.
