‘Especially Jaddu (Jadeja) yaar. Every ball he thinks its out!” Rohit Sharma explains DRS troubles

IND vs AUS 4th Test: Ahead of the third Test in Indore, Rohit Sharma had spoke about his 3-men DRS plan that involved him, as the captain, the bowler, and the wicketkeeper KS Bharat. How they will be the ones consulting, with inputs from close-in fielders if they heard a snick or such. It didn’t go to plan in the game though with India burning all their DRS reviews in no time. Ravindra Jadeja would be animated in his conviction and even thought Rohit could be seen not initially agreeing with the assessment, would cave in and lose the DRS.
“Especially Jaddu (Jadeja) yaar. Every ball he thinks its out!” Rohit said on the eve of the final Test at Ahmedabad. “I understand, they’re quite animated, it’s just the passion of the game, but that’s where my role comes in, to say bhai, relax a little, it’s okay if it’s at least ending up somewhere near the stumps, but this isn’t even hitting the stumps, and some balls were even pitching outside [leg stump]! So that was a silly make that we made but we hope to correct that in this game and we’ll have a small chat regarding this as well, and hopefully we can get it right in this game.”
Rohit also spoke about the Indore pitch in particular proved tricky for the DRS decisions.
“Especially in the last game, it was turning a lot, so we had to look at three aspects – pitch in line, impact in line, and then how much the ball is turning. When we played in Delhi, it was not turning so much, so it was only the impact and probably the line where it pitched, whether it’s outside leg or in line,” Rohit said.
It hasn’t also helped Rohit that the Indian wicketkeeper KS Bharat is a newbie to the DRS, considering the domestic games don’t use the technology.
“Yes, we accept that we didn’t make the right calls in the last game but Bharat obviously is new to DRS. He’s not kept wickets for India, so DRS is something very new. Ranji Trophy doesn’t have DRS, and India A and all of that doesn’t have DRS, so it’s something new for him as well. So we’ve just got to give him some time and make him understand what it is and all that.”
IT proved a bit of lottery for the Indians in the end at Indore. “DRS is a tricky one, honestly. It’s like a lottery. You get it right, you get it right, otherwise… You’ve just got to hope for the best, you’ve just got to understand certain aspects of DRS – pitching in line, impact in line, those kinds of things, because in India there’s not too much bounce, so not every ball that hits the pad, the bounce is going to be a factor, but it’s crucial to understand impact and pitching. So that is how you assess, and that is what we try and do as well.
“When we played in Indore, we didn’t realise that it’s going to turn so much, so we quickly gathered our thoughts and we said, okay, this looks like it’s going to turn a bit, so we need to understand how much it turns and where the ball will eventually end up.So what we decided at the start of the series is, the talk usually should be between the three of us – the bowler, the captain and the wicketkeeper – but obviously, the guys who are standing in close positions where they can hear the noise, where they can pick up certain things, they can also be involved. It’s not like it’s a three-way conference. But it’s a tricky one,” Rohit said.