Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar lauded the positive intent shown by Indian skipper Rohit Sharma during India’s ongoing second test match against Bangladesh in Kanpur. With second and third day already destroyed by persistent rainfall, Bangladesh scored (233) runs on day four in their first innings, with Mominul Haque being the top-scorer with (107). 

Keeping in mind the paucity of time, Indian skipper Rohit Sharma alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal showed aggressive intent, playing in T20 mode to give India an excellent start. India declared their first innings at 285 for the loss of nine wickets to remain alive in the game. At stumps, on day four, Indian bowlers also kept the pressure on Bangladesh batters to keep the match alive. 

“Takeaway for me with the way that India played was this is the legacy that Rohit Sharma will leave behind as captain. This is how he thinks. In the past one of the reasons why Test cricket became a little bit of a boring format was that not too many teams were willing to take the initiative barring maybe Australia and West Indies when they were number one. But here’s Rohit Sharma with a strong team. A team that is one of the top two teams in the world also shows the champion’s approach,” Manjrekar said on ESPNCricinfo.               

“Realising that so much time has been lost he leads by example exactly like he did in the 50-overs World Cup. So this is what Rohit Sharma will leave behind as his contribution to Indian cricket. That is just thumping you do only for the team, try and play to win and you know he doesn’t mind in the process like in the 50-over World Cup where he did not get a big hundred or anything like that.”

“Even here he was quite happy to put his wicket on the line and suddenly we have a Test match which India could win. There is excitement despite what happened. you have to applaud Rohit Sharma for that,” Manjrekar said.