Rohit Sharma’s return to Ranji Trophy met absolute disappointment as the India Test skipper aggregated just 31 runs in two innings against Jammu & Kashmir. Rohit showed his attacking approach throughout the match, looking to take bowlers on, but the intent didn’t reap the rewards Rohit intended, with his scores in the two innings reading only 3 and 28. Be it his opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal, or other senior stars like Shreyas Iyer or Ajinkya Rahane, none of these big-name batters produced runs as Mumbai suffered an upsetting defeat against J&K.

It was another veteran star, Shardul Thakur, who set the stage on fire with a ton, though his score couldn’t rescue Mumbai. As questions arose about the performances of senior stars like Rohit, the legendary Sunil Gavaskar asked some tough questions, taking a direct swipe at the attacking approach shown by the Hitman and others.

“Only Shardul Thakur, batting down the order, showed the gumption and desire to stick it out. But for his batting in both innings, the Mumbai score would have been embarrassing for a side filled with four Indian Test players in their top five. What Thakur and Tanush Kotian showed with their big partnership is that with a proper mix of caution and aggression, runs could be scored on the surface. The J&K batters also showed the same attitude and thus overhauled the target quite comfortably,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Sportstar.

“The dismissal of Mumbai’s Test batters once again brought to the fore the perils of the all-out aggressive mode of batting that is nowadays thought of as being central to run-making. It can work on flat pitches, but on pitches where the ball is doing something, there has to be a technique good enough to keep out the good delivery,” Gavaskar added, asking some tough questions to Rohit and others.

It was the diktat from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) that forced senior stars like Rohit, Jaiswal, Ravindra Jadeja, Shubman Gill, etc. to return to Ranji Trophy. Gavaskar, however, isn’t sure if the players played with all their heart or only in the bid to prevent their central contracts being taken away.

“The BCCI and the coach’s insistence on the Indian players playing in the Ranji Trophy meant that most of the players who were on the disastrous tour of Australia turned up for their State teams in the Ranji Trophy.

“Whether their hearts were in it or they did that only to ensure they were not stripped of their BCCI contracts, like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer were, after missing out on the Ranji Trophy games last year, is known only to them,” Gavaskar wondered.

Rohit and Jaiswal’s inclusion in the Mumbai team meant that a talented youngster like Ayush Mhatre, who scored a century in the last game, couldn’t retain his place in the team. Gavaskar, however, didn’t feel too bad for the teenager, suggesting he must have learned something from Rohit and others by just sharing the dressing room with them.

“Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal’s participation meant that Ayush Mhatre, who had got a couple of hundreds and some fifties, had to be left out of the Mumbai side. Hopefully, the youngster would have spent some time with both these players and picked their brains about adding to his batting ability,” he wrote.