KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma got India to strong positions in England, asserts Virender Sehwag

The fifth Test match in Manchester got cancelled on Friday after India failed to take the field following a fourth Covid-positive case in their camp. After Ravi Shastri, Bharat Arun and R Sridhar, assistant coach Yogesh Parmar also tested positive on the eve of the fifth and final Test. Earlier, India had won the fourth Test match at The Oval to take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the series. 

Jasprit Bumrah’s stellar spell at The Oval and Shardul Thakur’s all-round skills were a treat for India in the five-match Test series. But the biggest gain for India came in the form of the openers KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma. Rohit Sharma was second only to Joe Root in the list of highest run-getters in the series, scoring 368 runs from eight innings with an average over 52. His partner, Rahul scored 315 runs from eight innings with an average of 39.37. Virender Sehwag stated that the performance of the openers strengthened Team India's hold in the Test series against England.

"The contribution of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma cannot be forgotten. If the partnerships had not happened between KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma, the middle order which was not scoring runs would have come in much earlier and India would have gotten all out even quicker," Sehwag said on the Sony Sports Network.

The Indian openers batted brilliantly in the initial overs to reduce the pressure on the out-of-form middle-order batsmen. Sehwag stated that the middle-order batsmen in few matches did not make use of the foundation laid by the Indian openers.

"They used to get India to a strong position, bat for 30-40 overs although even after that because the middle order was not in form, we were getting all out early in some matches," the former India opener added.