Too soon to pass judgement whether Pant can take DRS calls: Rohit Sharma
New Delhi: The Indian team paid the price for Rishabh Pant's poor DRS calls against Bangladesh and skipper Rohit Sharma says that he doesn't want to jump to a conclusion yet whether the youngster is good enough to take tricky review decisions.
India did not review the decision when the umpire turned down an lbw appeal against Mushfiqur Rahim in the third ball of the 10th over, bowled by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal. Rahim was on six at that time and went on to make an unbeaten 60 to lead Bangladesh to a comfortable seven-wicket win, while chasing 149 on Sunday night.
"Of course, Rishabh is young and he will need time to understand. It's too soon to judge whether he can make those decisions. Plus, the bowlers as well. It's a combination when the captain is not in the right position to make that decision," Rohit said at the post-match conference.
In the last ball of that Chahal's over, when the umpire turned down a caught behind appeal against Soumya Sarkar, Rohit reviewed the decision on Pant's insistence but lost it since there was no edge.
"When you are not in the right position (as a fielder), you have to trust your bowler and the wicketkeeper. Based on that, you have to make that decision, whichever format you play."
Rohit felt that 148 was a defendable score had they been smart on the field.
"148 was a good score. We would have defended it if we were smart on the field. A couple of decisions we did not get it right on the field and that went against us. That's where we lacked in decision making," he said.
Sent in to bat, India lost Rohit in the very first over and the skipper his early dismissal combined with a tough pitch negotiate made life tough for them.
"Whenever you lose a wicket in the first over, it's not easy to build on that. The pitch was slightly soft, so shot-making was not that easy. We wanted something around 140-150, on batting first, that was the message."
While Bangladesh batsmen negotiated the conditions better, young Indian batsmen struggled to cope.
Rohit said he was not overtly worried about that fact that his brigade failed in home conditions but lauded Bangladesh for raising crucial partnerships.
"The ball was stopping and gripping a little bit. These are young players trying to get into the squad, so they need a bit of time to understand how they need to bat on such pitches. I would not call that over-cautious approach. I think we were smart but we did not get enough runs.
"It was good fighting total but when you defend such total, you need to keep taking wickets but they had good partnerships and that was the turning point."
Needing to defend 22 runs in the last two overs, Rohit handed the ball to young left-arm paceman Khaleel Ahmed, who conceded four straight boundaries.
Asked if how difficult it was to operate without proven performers such as Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah, the captain backed his young bowlers.
"These are the guys, who did not play for a while in this format. These are bowlers we have been identified that they are the ones who can do well in this format. They have done reasonably well." He expects them to learn from their mistakes.
"They still need to understand when defending smaller targets, they need to bowl according to the plan. They will learn by playing these games. They have the talent and ability to bounce back but only time will tell if they can do that or not." He also said that, asking Khaleel to bowl the penultimate bowler was the best option he had.
"I did not want our spinners to bowl at the back-end. I kept one over for Chahal because he has bowled in that situation before. Two right-handers, I will take that chance anytime with Chahal taking the ball away from them. So that was the idea behind keeping Khaleel for the back-end."
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
