The India cricket team’s dressing room has become a huge talking point as the visitors have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. While the news of Rohit Sharma opting out of the Sydney Test is doing rounds, another media report has emerged stating the players have been far from happy for several reasons. It is reported that the Indian team did not celebrate after winning the Perth Test, raising issues of dressing room rift between players and coaching staff.
Team India did not celebrate Perth win?
India won the Perth Test by 295 runs, which was Australia’s biggest defeat on home turf in a Test match. The win also saw India start the series on a positive note as they took a 1-0 lead. However, the players did not celebrate together as they usually do and were rather seen accompanying their partners on the night they won the Test match.
"After the Perth win, such a significant win in the history of Indian cricket, the fact that they didn’t celebrate that as a team and went their own ways didn’t tell me it was a broken dressing room. But it was a dressing room where there are different cliques, generationally and otherwise, who are just doing their own things," journalist Bharat Sundaresan said while speaking to Channel 7.
"This, I am told, is despite one of the senior support staff members saying, 'Here, I will put in my credit card, let’s all order some drinks, stick together.' But that was not meant to be. I thought a win like that would bring things together and energise this as one collective. As we’ve seen, as the series has gone on, it took that one bad loss in Melbourne—where it was one bad session, and they lost a Test match they fought hard in—for those simmering uncertainties, not really tensions, to surface and become public," he added.
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The communication gap in the dressing room has only broadened after the start of the SCG Test, with captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir not speaking to one another. Rohit opted out of the SCG Test while Gambhir was very harsh with the Indian team members after the Melbourne Test.
India suffer in Rohit’s absence
After a heavy build-up to the contest, India had another poor day at the office despite seeing skipper Rohit make way for Shubman Gill. India was reduced to 185 in their first innings, with the visitors losing key wickets in the first session of the match. Jaiswal (10), KL Rahul (4), and Gill (20) all failed to impress in what is a must-win contest for Team India in the ongoing BGT.
Later Virat Kohli (17) and Rishabh Pant (40) also failed to convert their starts before Australian bowlers bowled out India for 185.
(With Inputs from Agencies)