Former England captain Nasser Hussain was disappointed with India's performance in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) Final and suggested top-order batters in Rohit Sharma's team to learn from Babar Azam and Kane Williamson on how to play against the moving ball in swinging conditions.
India's top-order batters Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli failed to fire in the summit clash which led to their eventual defeat by 209 runs at The Oval against Australia last week.
Barring Ajinkya Rahane's 89 and Shardul Thakur's 51 in the first innings, none of the others in the famed Indian batting lineup managed to score a half-century in the match.
The scores of the top-four batters read as follows:
Rohit Sharma - 15 & 43
Shubman Gill - 13 & 18
Cheteshwar Pujara - 14 & 27
Virat Kohli - 14 & 49
Nasser Hussain disappointed with Indian batters
“Really disappointed with the Indian batters, their fans might come after me for saying this but I think Indian top order needs to look at Babar (Azam) and Kane (Williamson) on how to play the pacers when the ball is moving around. Both of them do it so late,” Nasser said on Sky Sports while analysing the Indian performance in the WTC final.
Captain Rohit also admitted that the flop show from the batters was one of the main reasons behind India's defeat in the WTC final.
"Again we didn't apply ourselves with the bat. It was a good pitch to bat on. All five days the pitch behaved pretty well and we didn't capitalise," Rohit said after the match.
