“His captaincy was a bit clueless” - Saba Karim unimpressed with Rohit Sharma’s tactics against Bangladesh in 1st ODI

Former keeper-batter Saba Karim was disappointed with Indian captain Rohit Sharma’s tactics in the first ODI of the three-match series against Bangladesh in Dhaka on Sunday, December 4. While also being critical of India’s bowling towards the end of the game, he described Rohit’s leadership in the match as a “bit clueless”.

India went down to Bangladesh by one wicket in the opening ODI on Sunday. After putting up only 186 on the board, the Men in Blue had the hosts on the mat at 136/9. However, in an explicable manner, the visitors contrived to lose the match as Mehidy Hasan Miraz (38*) and Mustafizur Rahman (10*) added an unbroken 51 runs for the last wicket.

While discussing India’s defeat in the first ODI in Dhaka, Karim expressed dissatisfaction with a number of aspects of the team’s performance. Speaking to India News, he said:

“If we analyze our bowling at the end, the right lengths were not bowled. There are some question marks over Rohit Sharma’s captaincy as well. There should be some talk about it. According to me, his captaincy was a bit clueless.”

After a poor outing with the bat, Rohit was disappointing with his captaincy as well. He kept bowling the ineffective pacers, who stuck to short and wide lengths and kept offering width to the Bangladesh batters.

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“India looked very complacent after Bangladesh were nine down” - Rajkumar Sharma

Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma blamed Team India’s defeat on the complacency that set in after they had Bangladesh nine down.

According to Sharma, the Men in Blue displayed no urgency to finish the match, thinking they would have it easy. He opined:

“India looked very complacent after Bangladesh were nine down. They thought they had 50 runs to defend and the batters would not be able to get them. No one seemed bothered as Bangladesh got easy ones and twos. There was no urgency and the complacency eventually hurt India."

Sharma added that the lack of pace in the bowling once again came back to haunt the visitors. He concluded:

“We have often said that India need speed at the death. Again, that was lacking and haunted us to some extent. I would say India played very poor cricket and handed the match they should have won to Bangladesh on a platter. Very bad performance.”

Having lost the first one-dayer, India will need to beat Bangladesh in the second ODI on Wednesday, December 7, to stay alive in the series.