Rohit Sharma continues to struggle as plans for undercooked pink-ball games fail to deliver success for the captain and batter

When Rohit landed in Perth nearly two weeks ago, he must have known that he would be compared not only to Jasprit Bumrah's leadership skills in the first Test but also to how he performed as a captain and batsman himself. The recent home series losses against New Zealand, where he only managed to score 91 runs in three matches, would have weighed heavily on his mind. Despite starting with a 1-0 lead in the pink-ball Test in Adelaide, Rohit was fully aware of the challenges that awaited him.

First, the captaincy. Hailed as a players’ leader who reads the game superbly and is tactically shrewd, Rohit knew more than anyone else when play began on the second afternoon of the second Test that he had his work cut out. His two most experienced and accomplished pacers, Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj, hadn’t maximised the opportunity of using a new pink ball exclusively under lights the previous night. When Australia began on 86 for one after 33 overs in response to India’s 180, Rohit had to strike the right balance between attack and defence so that the game didn’t run away from India.

It didn’t help his cause that Bumrah had already bowled 11 overs and Siraj 10. Leadership isn’t just about thinking of immediate gains but also the not-so-long-term. With the third Test in Brisbane a week away, Rohit couldn’t afford to run his two pace spearheads into the ground in the best batting phase of the match.

Still, he kept at it, with great help from the pace duo. Bumrah took two wickets in his four-over first spell, Siraj was desperately unlucky to go wicketless despite seven stunning overs where he kept beating the bat. At 103 for three with the accomplished Steve Smith back in the hut, India might have sensed an opening, but with Bumrah and Siraj off the firing line, Travis Head slammed the slightly ajar door shut in their faces.

The spite and juice on a first-evening surface in Perth had worked to Harshit Rana’s advantage but in far more trying conditions, he came up short – literally. The young Delhi quick in his second Test spiralled after a promising start, bowling too short and too wide and allowed Head to pick him off with ridiculous ease and regularity. Rohit did give the young tyro protection in the deep, but Rana’s inconsistencies were pronounced enough for Head to pick his spots and score at an alarmingly rapid pace.

Having brought R Ashwin into the XI for his wicket-taking abilities, Rohit was forced to employ the off-spinner in a different role with no help forthcoming from the surface. Ashwin was tidy but couldn’t over-attack because the runs were flowing far too freely from the other end. There certainly was a case for Nitish Kumar Reddy getting more of a bowl, something Rohit will ponder over when he wonders what he could have done differently.

Rohit Sharma fails to make an impact in middle-order

As a batter, there’s not a lot he could have done against the wonder ball from his counterpart. Slanting in in the air, it drew Rohit forward. The captain seemed to have covered the line until the ball straightened at the very last second, decked just around his outside edge and kissed the outside of the off-stump. Rohit has been guilty of being flat-footed in the past, but there was nothing he could have done this time. Nothing most could, to be honest.

And yet, that doesn’t help, does it? The run of outs just keeps piling up. The bowleds and the leg befores are becoming more frequent, setting tongues wagging about the lack of footwork. Admittedly, as many experts have pointed out, the pink ball comes on to the batter quicker than expected, India don’t play as many day-night Tests as, say, Australia and therefore their batters find it harder to make the necessary adjustments quickly but again, that doesn’t count for much in professional sport.

A return to the middle order for the first time in six years has yielded scores of 3 and 6, which means Rohit now has been dismissed for a single-digit score for the eighth time in his last 12 Test innings. He will be the first to acknowledge that that simply is not good enough.

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