Australia's Attempt to Disrupt Rohit Sharma Revealed: 'Failed to Intimidate Rahane and Bumrah'

Former Australia cricketer Kerry O’Keeffe highlighted the key factor that led to the home team's successful reclaiming of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after a decade, with a convincing 3-1 series win against India. O'Keeffe's pre-series prediction of Australia's strategy proved to be spot on, especially as Rohit Sharma's future looks uncertain after a disappointing tour.

Before the start of the series in Perth in November last year, the Fox Cricket expert said that Australia would use their age-old tactic of bringing down the careers of Virat Kohli and Rohit. And so it happened.

Kohli did make a bright start to potentially his final tour of Australia as he scored a match-winning ton in Perth. But that remained the only highlight of his otherwise forgettable tour, where he managed 90 runs in the remaining innings, whilst struggling, once again, against the deliveries outside the off stump.

Rohit, on the other hand, who joined the Indian team after the first match owing to the birth of his second child, finished with just 31 runs in five innings at 6.2, the worst-ever average recorded by a touring skipper in Australia. He eventually "opted out" of the series decider in Sydney owing to his poor form.

'Australia brought down Rohit Sharma straight away'

Speaking to Fox Cricket on Sunday, O’Keeffe outlined that Australia remains one of the most challenging venues for a player in their mid-30s. Rohit, 37, was also vulnerable after a poor run of form in the home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand.

The former spinner said that while Australia failed to pull off their tactic against Ajinkya Rahane, who had led the Indian team in the win in the 2020/21 series Down Under, or against Jasprit Bumrah, who led the tourists to a win in the Perth opener, they were successful against Rohit, who found himself amid an unwanted club comprising Shan Masood with Pakistan, West Indies' Kraigge Brathwaite and Tim Southee of New Zealand.

“So it’s come to pass,” O’Keeffe said. “The Australian tactic for years has been to look to bring down the opposition captain, and it’s been, if you look at the series they’ve won, it’s worked the whole time.

“They couldn’t get Rahane Ajinka the last time and he won the series. But if you look at the captains they’ve brought down in recent times, Sharma. Tick. Shan Masood with Pakistan. It was three-nil. Kraigge Brathwaite, it was one-all, but they were on top of Kraigge. They went to New Zealand and brought down Tim Southee, winning two-nil.

“They couldn’t bring down Bumrah. He was too good. But then the baton was passed to Rohit Sharma and they brought him down straight away, to the extent that he withdrew from the final Test. So that’s a tactic they seem to want to do if they can, if they can break the skipper and make him anonymous, it empowers them.”

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