IND vs ENG: Nick Knight reveals the moment that changed the course of the Test series

Nick Knight has said that veteran England batter Joe Root dropping Indian captain Rohit Sharma in the Rajkot Test changed the course of the Test series. After winning the opening Test by 28 runs in Hyderabad and taking a 1-0 series lead against India, England was left behind and eventually lost the other three.

With India at 47 for 3 in the Rajkot Test, the England team looked dominating when Tom Hartley created a chance to dismiss Rohit, who got an outside edge. However, Joe Root couldn’t take the catch in the slip cordon and Rohit got a life when he was batting on 27 as well. Later, he scored 131 runs off 196 balls and India eventually won the match by 434 runs to take a 2-1 lead in the series as well.

Team India won the Test series with one in hand

And, Knight said that after the dropped chance, Rohit Sharma upped his game and England started struggling throughout.

ALSO READ: Zaheer Khan shares MS Dhoni’s plans after IPL 2024

“If the captain is feeling under a bit of pressure, he’s been targeted by the opposition, it makes everybody in the dressing room vulnerable. When you look at the two sides, you have Ben Stokes, whose performances individually haven’t been where he wanted them to be,” Nick Knight told Jio Cinemas.

Rohit Sharma scored his 12th Test hundred

“About Rohit, I go back to one factor that might have determined the outcome of the series, and it’s Joe Root dropping Rohit in Rajkot. Rohit got an outside edge off Tom Hartley and Root put that down. At that point, he was contributing but not big scores. From that moment onwards, he has pushed on. When you look back at the bigger picture of the series, it was quite crucial,” he further added.

After he scored a century in Rajkot, Rohit Sharma kicked on and has scored 400 runs from 5 matches which came at an average of 50 and a strike-rate of 58.8 with 2 tons and 2 fifties as well. In the 5th Test in Dharamsala, the Indian skipper also smashed his 12th Test hundred before Ben Stokes rattled his stumps with an absolute peach.