Virender Sehwag draws parallels between Rohit Sharma's demotion against NZ and Sachin Tendulkar's in 2007 ODI WC

The former India cricketer Virender Sehwag wasn’t too impressed with team India’s batting strategy in the game against New Zealand. After facing a disappointing loss against Pakistan in the opening game, India locked horns with the Black Caps in what was a crucial game for both teams. Ishan Kishan and KL Rahul opened the innings for the team and that didn’t go quite well with a lot of cricket experts and on-lookers.

This demoted Rohit Sharma at number three and Virat Kohli was pushed at number four. The change in the batting order did not reap any greater rewards for the team as they managed just 110 runs at the end of 20 overs. Sehwag thus recounted the instance from the 2007 ODI World Cup and asserted that the team made a similar mistake then.

In the year 2007, the Rahul Dravid-led side had a dismaying outing in the mega event as they were crashed out in the group stage itself. He questioned the decision of demoting Tendulkar at number four instead of making him open the innings.

The former cricketer also reckoned that Tendulkar wasn’t needed in the middle overs as there were already a few alternatives present. He also pointed that changing strategies often affects the performances of the team.

When teams play bad, you change your strategy and that is why they play bad: Virender Sehwag

“The other mistake was that when the opening pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly were performing so well, before that from 2003-06 Sehwag and Sachin’s opening partnership was also working well, why were they broken? Why was it said that if Sachin Tendulkar plays in the middle order then he can control the middle order? You already had three players to control; Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Dravid, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. So why did you need a fourth player to control the middle order?

“When teams play bad, you change your strategy and that is why they play bad. When you are doing something good like the Cricbuzz panelists who are good and you change them forcefully, that is when it will go down”, Sehwag said while speaking to Cricbuzz.