Indian skipper Rohit Sharma offered an empathetic vote of confidence for young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal ahead of the Boxing Day Test of the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He said the team won’t ‘overburden’ Jaiswal with information and advice and instead try to ‘encourage’ him so he can play his ‘very, very dangerous’ natural game.
Jaiswal played a huge role in India’s win in the Perth Test, scoring a brilliant 161 in the second innings. However, since then, his top score has been 24. He has had a couple of unlucky dismissals off half-volleys pitching on the leg stump but Australian bowlers have also managed to exploit his small technical deficiencies against the moving ball.
“Look, with Jaiswal, he is coming here for the first time,” Rohit said in a press conference. “He has already shown what he is capable of. He has got so much talent. When you have a guy like that in your team, you don’t want to tamper too much with his mindset. Let him be as free as possible. We try not to overburden him with too many thoughts regarding his batting. He understands his batting more than any one of us. That’s how he has played his cricket, scored all of his runs in domestic and international cricket.”
“When you have a guy like that, you want to encourage him more and more so he goes out there and plays his game freely. He has got the ability to play all sorts of games — whether it’s the holding game or dominating the game. It’s just about trying to figure out certain areas of his game, which I am sure he is doing that along with the other guys. Guys who have played here before have been passing on their knowledge about what usually happens here.”
Rohit added that Australia offers a lot of consistency — same grounds, same bowling attack — and all that the left-hander needs to do is to ready specific plans and execute them.
“Every venue here has different challenges, it’s about adapting to those challenges, playing on different pitches. Bowlers are the same. They have got four seamers and one off-spinner who play consistently for them. It’s about understanding your plans for them and doing that. You don’t want to be telling him too many things about his batting. We want him to play how he plays and that’s how, at the top, if he gets going, he can be very, very dangerous,” he said.
The fourth Test will begin at 5am IST on December 26 at the MCG.
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