T20 World Cup 2021: Sehwag likens Rohit Sharma's demotion to No 3 with Sachin Tendulkar's in 2007 World Cup

File image of Rohit Sharma. (Source: Twitter)

Former India opener Virender Sehwag found a similarity between Indian team's decisions in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021 match against New Zealand and during the 2007 ODI World Cup. 

In a conversation with Cricbuzz, he said that India repeated the same mistake that Rahul Dravid-led side had committed in the 50-over World Cup, that is demoting their best batter to middle order. 

He said that, in 2007 too, Sachin Tendulkar was asked to come down at 4 in order to strengthen the middle order. It was a decision taken by the then coach Greg Chappell, whose stint was filled with many controversies. 

In their second group match of the T20 World Cup, Virat Kohli and management decided to change the batting order and asked Rohit to come down to 3 while Virat batted at 4. 

Sehwag said that one of the two mistakes that team did was opting to bat first when the team was chasing well, back in 2007. India had pulled off 17 chases in the games leading up to the World Cup.

Sehwag said, "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", he added. 

India take on Afghanistan on Wednesday (3 November) to ensure they are still in contention for the semi-finals.