"Cause of concern without doubt": Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma (Pic: File Pic)

Following the series defeat against New Zealand, Team India skipper Rohit Sharma said that the poor form of batsmen is a cause of concern for the national team ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

The iconic Border-Gavaskar Trophy is scheduled to begin on November 22 with the first match set to be played in Perth.

Rohit Sharma knows he must bring his A-grade cricket to Australia as he managed to accumulate just 91 runs across three Test matches against New Zealand. Stalwart Virat Kohli will also be looking to find himself among the runs.

Virat Kohli managed a decent score of 70 in the second innings of the first Test against the Kiwis in Bengaluru but failed to make it into double figures in four of his other five hits during the series.

Also Read: WTC: How can India qualify for final after 3-0 whitewash against New Zealand?

"It's a cause of concern without a doubt. If the batters are not performing, that is a cause of concern. But what's done is done now. I think as a player, as a captain, as a team, we all have to look forward and see how we can correct what we didn't manage to achieve here. There is a good opportunity for us to go and do something special in Australia," Rohit said of the lack of runs from himself and Kohli as quoted by the ICC official website.

Rohit Sharma and Co. suffered a 3-0 Test series loss against New Zealand which in return has affected their World Test Championship rankings. Further, they will lock horns with Australia for the five-match affair in which they will need to secure victories in at least four matches to make it to the WTC final.

India was scheduled to take on India A in a three-day practice match ahead of the first Test in Perth on 22 November, but Rohit Sharma confirmed the team have since cancelled that contest in favour of match simulation against the same side that will allow their batters to maximise their time in the middle and get used to the conditions in Australia.

"Look, you know, rather than practice match, we planned a very match simulation kind of a thing with India A. I think sometimes when you play that practice match, we're travelling with a squad of 19 players and it was only three days that were allotted to us. And I don't know how much workload we can get done in those three days in terms of getting everyone prepared," the opener said.

"We want to maximise this three-day slot that we've got and I feel this is the best way to do it where the batters can have a lot of time in the middle and the bowlers at the same time can get their workload in terms of getting the number of balls bowled in the middle. So that was the idea and we will be. I think we'll be training at WACA, which is as close to Optus (Stadium) where you have that bounce and carry. So hopefully we can use those three days perfectly and maximise how much ever we can from our point of view," the right-hand batter added.

India Test squad to face Australia: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.

(With ANI Inputs)