Mohit Sharma opined that the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) can afford to rest their out-of-form players and see how the benchwarmers can perform during Sunday's clash against the Punjab Kings at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala.
The former India pacer said that RCB should bring Romario Shepherd back in the side and give Jitesh Sharma, who has been in abysmal form, a breather. Mohit also suggested that Jordan Cox could replace Jacob Bethell, who has struggled with
the bat since replacing the injured Phil Salt at the top of the order. However, the cricketer-turned-expert opined that since the defending champions are coming into this match on the back of consecutive wins, they might not want to tinker too much with the side.
“Changes can be made. RCB can bring back Romario Shepherd. Again, I can see one or two possible changes. But yes, the winning combination is the most important thing. You don’t want to disturb it. If you look at it, one possible change could be resting Jitesh Sharma for a match and seeing how things go. Since Jacob Bethell hasn’t scored runs, you could bring in Jordan Cox. He is a wicketkeeper, so you can use him behind the stumps," Mohit said during a discussion on Cricbuzz.
“Then, in place of Jitesh, you could include a proper Indian batter. After that, you could bring Romario back and build the combination that way. So, for the players who are not performing, you can experiment for one match. But again, when your team is winning, you usually don’t want to touch the combination,” he added.
“It’s actually a good thing that the team is doing well” - Rohan Gavaskar’s huge take on RCB’s struggling batter
Rohan Gavaskar mentioned that the fact that RCB have been winning matches bodes well for Bethell as it has overshadowed his failures to an extent and given him more opportunities to succeed. The former India batter feels that the RCB management might continue with the young English all-rounder.
“It’s actually a good thing for Jacob Bethell that the team is doing well. Because when the team is performing well, these things don’t get noticed that much. But when the team is doing badly, every failure gets highlighted. People start saying he didn’t score runs, he didn’t take wickets, he dropped catches," Gavaskar said.
“If the team keeps winning, then there’s only a small discussion around it, like, ‘Jacob Bethell isn’t scoring many runs, but it’s okay because Devdutt Padikkal is scoring, Virat Kohli is scoring, and lower down the order Krunal Pandya is contributing runs and taking wickets.’ Then the thinking changes towards sticking with the winning combination. So, for Jacob Bethell, the good thing right now is that the team is winning,” he added.
