New Delhi ,oct 22
Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan attributed stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s failures during the first ODI against Australia at Perth and team playing a deep batting line up to a lack of game time on part of both legends and said that “processes need to be completed no matter how big a player you are.”The former all-rounder, on the other hand, hailed wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant for giving himself some game time against South Africa A before the Proteas’ tour of India in November.Pathan was speaking on his YouTube channel. Both Rohit and Virat, who were last seen in Indian colours during the ICC Champions Trophy win back in March, had poor outings at Perth, scoring eight and a duck respectively. While they played the IPL from April-June, they did not have much game time as they had retired from Tests ahead of the England tour and had retired from T20Is last year, missing out on an intense five-Test tour to England, the T20I Asia Cup and home series against West Indies consisting of two Tests.Speaking on his YouTube channel, Pathan did say that ‘Ro-Ko’ would not be judged by their performance in every match, given their massive and impressive ODI numbers and their proven greatness.
“But you have to do the things that are needed, you have to complete the processes, you have to play matches. In this regard, they have fallen behind. If they had played some matches before coming, and shown some form, the team management might have thought seven batters are enough, and we can include Kuldeep Yadav. But now, since the team is unsure of the form of three players, it is not happening,” he said.”It is not like they (Virat, Rohit, and Shreyas Iyer) did not have a lot of options to play cricket (during the break).
