DRS is a Tricky, Like a Lottery and Jadeja Thinks Every Ball It’s Out, Says Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma has been, in the recent Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, at the receiving end of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja’s wrath. The reason being DRS calls.
On many an occasion, Rohit was seen trusting the calls for a referral from with Ashwin and Jadeja only to be told by the third umpire that their on-field counterparts’ decision was correct. These decisions mostly were followed by close calls which the Indian captain opting not to review only for replays to show later that the Aussie batter escaped with a lucky break.
At the pre-match press conference ahead of the fourth and final in Ahmedabad, Rohit said that DRS calls are a lottery.
“DRS is a tricky one, honestly. It’s like a lottery. You get it right, you get it right, otherwise… You’ve just got to hope for the best, you’ve just got to understand certain aspects of DRS – pitching in line, impact in line, those kinds of things, because in India there’s not too much bounce, so not every ball that hits the pad, the bounce is going to be a factor, but it’s crucial to understand impact and pitching,” Rohit said the press conference.
“Especially in the last game, it was turning a lot, so we had to look at three aspects – pitch in line, impact in line, and then how much the ball is turning. When we played in Delhi, it was not turning so much, so it was only the impact and probably the line where it pitched, whether it’s outside leg or in line. So that is how you assess, and that is what we try and do as well.
“When we played in Indore, we didn’t realise that it’s going to turn so much, so we quickly gathered our thoughts and we said, okay, this looks like it’s going to turn a bit, so we need to understand how much it turns and where the ball will eventually end up,” he added.
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Rohit also came to the defence of wicket-keeper KS Bharat, saying that DRS is something that is new to him.
“So what we decided at the start of the series is, the talk usually should be between the three of us – the bowler, the captain and the wicketkeeper – but obviously, the guys who are standing in close positions where they can hear the noise, where they can pick up certain things, they can also be involved. It’s not like it’s a three-way conference. But it’s a tricky one,” Rohit said.
“Yes, we accept that we didn’t make the right calls in the last game, but Bharat obviously is new to DRS. He’s not kept wickets for India, so DRS is something very new. Ranji Trophy doesn’t have DRS, and India A and all of that doesn’t have DRS, so it’s something new for him as well. So we’ve just got to give him some time and make him understand what it is and all that,” he added.
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When asked about whose calls are harder to gauge and decided on between Jadeja and Ashwin, Rohit said: “Especially Jaddu yaar. Every ball he thinks it’s out. I understand, they’re quite animated, it’s just the passion of the game, but that’s where my role comes in, to say bhai, relax a little, it’s okay if it’s at least ending up somewhere near the stumps, but this isn’t even hitting the stumps, and some balls were even pitching outside [leg stump], so that was a silly mistake that we made but we hope to correct that in this game and we’ll have a small chat regarding this as well, and hopefully we can get it right in this game.”
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