File photo of Jasprit Bumrah© AFP
Former England cricket team skipper Michael Vaughan believes that India lacks ‘aggressive leadership’ going into the five-match Test series against Australia. There has been a lot of chatter around the series with the first match starting in Perth on Friday. In his column for The Telegraph, Vaughan wrote that in the previous two occasions when India won a series in Australia, they had Virat Kohli as captain and Ravi Shastri as coach – two figures well known for their positive brand of cricket. However, he called skipper Rohit Sharma as “laid-back” and stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah a ‘lovely, smiley bloke’.
“When they won here in 2018-19 and 2020-21, they had Kohli as captain first time, and Ajinkya Rahane for much of the second,” Vaughan wrote. “Both times, Ravi Shastri was head coach, so they had genuinely inspirational and charismatic leadership from at least one member of the axis. This time, it is Gautam Gambhir, who has had a poor start as head coach, and Rohit as captain, with Bumrah standing in while he is on paternity leave. Rohit is very laid-back, and Bumrah is just a lovely, smiley bloke. They are missing that snarl that you need to take down Australia,’ Vaughan wrote for The Telegraph.
Vaughan also highlighted the absence of an experienced batter like Cheteshwar Pujara – someone who has excelled in Australia and had been a “cornerstone” of the Indian batting line-up.
“They also need someone to step into Cheteshwar Pujara’s shoes,” he said.
“When teams have won in Australia over the past two decades, they have had a cornerstone to their batting. Someone who just really grinds the bowlers down, sending them into fourth and fifth spells. Pujara has done it brilliantly, so too Alastair Cook for England in 2010-11. You need dogged, determined, stubborn, selfish batting, and you only need a few shots to do it,” he added.
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