Former England batter Geoffrey Boycott left Rohit Sharma's supporters furious after he made disparaging remarks against the India skipper following the home team's loss to Ben Stokes and his boys in the first Test in Hyderabad.

 

India was in a commanding position in the match after dismissing the Three Lions for 246 in their first innings before taking a 190-run lead, thanks to important contributions of 86 and 87 from KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja, respectively.

 

However, England erased the lead and set a 231-run target for India after Ollie Pope produced a knock for the ages, hitting 196 on a turning track in Hyderabad.

 

With Ollie Pope going all guns blazing, Rohit Sharma's defensive tactics allowed England to pile on a monumental total of 420 in their second essay. 

 

This helped the Three Lions to dominate the proceedings in the fourth innings, which eventually proved to be a bit too much for Rohit Sharma and his men as India lost the game by 28 runs.

 

India's shock defeat at the hands of the English team also opened the doors for Rohit Sharma's criticism as many former and current cricketers were left unimpressed by his captaincy.

 

Geoffrey Boycott and a number of other players ridiculed his fielding ploys during England's second essay.

“Their captain Rohit Sharma is nearly 37 and past his best. He makes pretty cameos but has only scored two Test hundreds at home in four years,” Geoffrey Boycott wrote in his column for a British publication. 

 

“They are also weak in the field. This India team is ripe for the taking, and England have a golden chance to be the first side to topple them on their own patch for 12 years. India badly miss Virat Kohli, and Ravindra Jadeja has a hamstring injury and will not play the second Test,” he mentioned.

 

“India are due a defeat at home. The signs are good, as they have lost Kohli, Jadeja, Mohammad Shami and Rishabh Pant and are playing opponents full of confidence after a remarkable win. England must take this rare opportunity,” Geoffrey Boycott suggested.   

Geoffrey Boycott's comments were not liked by Rohit Sharma's admirers, who informed him that the Nagpur-born cricketer was among the top-three run-getters for India in Test cricket in the last three years.

 

Some called Geoffrey Boycott's statement “biased” and “pathetic” as he didn't compare Rohit Sharma's stats with figures of other top batters in the world.

 

Prior to Geoffrey Boycott, former England skipper Michael Vaughan blamed Rohit Sharma for India's defeat in the first Test against the Three Lions in Hyderabad on Sunday.

 

Michael Vaughan, who rated Rohit Sharma's captaincy as “average” during the five-day fixture at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, underlined that India would have never lost the game if Virat Kohli had led the hosts in the Telangana capital.  

 

“They miss Virat Kohli's captaincy massively in Test cricket. Under Virat's captaincy, India wouldn't have lost the game,” Michael Vaughan said on a television show.

 

“Rohit is a legend and a great player. But I felt he just switched off completely,” the former England skipper added.

 

“I thought Rohit Sharma's captaincy was very, very average. I thought he was so reactive, I don't think he manoeuvred his field or was proactive with his bowling changes. And he didn't have any answer to Ollie Pope's sweeps or reverse sweeps,” Michael Vaughan explained in his column for The Telegraph.

 

“The greatest spinner I've seen, Shane Warne, would go around the wicket and get the player to sweep the leg side and say good luck trying to do that. I didn’t see that any of that from India,” he elaborated.

 

“It was just all too easy. The way that England play, they will always score boundaries. And by spreading the field, Sharma was basically saying that his bowlers' best balls would still go for one,” Michael Vaughan stressed.

 

“Beating this India team away is simply the finest England Test match victory of my lifetime. There have been some sensational England away wins over the years. But what England have just done in Hyderabad tops them all: it's number one for me,” he continued.

 

“No one does that to India in their backyard. Look at what England have overcome. India are one of the finest Test teams ever at home. The wicket had real turn. And England had a first-innings deficit of 190 runs. India have never lost a Test at home when conceding such a big lead – it's really incredible what England have achieved. It is the best win full stop – at home or away – in all the time I have been involved in English cricket,” Michael Vaughan reckoned.

 

Former England captain Kevin Pietersen underlined that Ollie Pope's stunning knock destroyed India's confidence, and that's where Rohit Sharma and his men lost the fight in the Test match.

 

“This partnership has destroyed India's soul. England have put itself in a commanding position. Psychologically a lead over 200 is a huge blow for India. Batting in the fourth innings is incredibly difficult. There's a reason why teams don't chase big totals in the fourth innings of a Test match. It is very tough,” Kevin Pietersen said on Star Sports.

 

“With every single boundary, a head dropped in the field,” he added.

 

Rohit Sharma's tactics were questioned by India veteran Dinesh Karthik.

 

“India have been too defensive. I can understand being defensive to Pope but to Tom Hartley, Jadeja and Ashwin should get attacking fielders and not so many sweepers,” Dinesh Karthik expressed.

 

Ex-India coach Ravi Shastri and former spinner Murali Karthik blasted the team's negative body language on the field.

 

“India's body language has been listless ever since that partnership between Ben Foakes and Ollie Pope. They have waited for things to happen,” Murali Kartik noted.

 

“The body language is dropping. This is an unknown territory for India. You can sense the home team is under pressure. They are not used to visiting teams pilling on 400-plus runs in the third innings,” Ravi Shastri pointed out.

 

England captain Ben Stokes described his team's triumph as their greatest since he became the skipper in April 2022.  

 

“Since I've taken the captaincy on, we've obviously had a lot of fantastic moments as a team, we've had a lot of great victories, we've been involved in some amazing games. But I think where we are and who we're playing against, this victory…100% definitely our greatest triumph since I've been captain,” Ben Stokes said.

 

“To be perfectly honest with you, it's my first time coming out here and being in-charge of the team, being the captain in these conditions. I'm not going to lie, I may not seem it but I'm a great observer of the game. I've learned a lot from our first innings in the field, I've watched a lot of how the Indian spinners operate in the field, fields that Rohit set and take a lot of that into our innings here, when we had to bowl them out,” he mentioned.

 

“I think that might have been pretty obvious, but absolutely thrilled for everyone involved. Tom Hartley on debut, to come and get nine wickets in the whole game; Ollie Pope first game back after a shoulder surgery; it's an incredible effort by everyone, even the people who might not necessarily have the rewards. I think everyone has contributed to a great win,” Ben Stokes highlighted.

 

“Tom came into the squad for the first time, he's heard a lot of languages spoken, a lot of confidence given to him with that. The game-plan was… this was obviously going to be a long tour, a long game. I was willing to give him a long spell regardless of what had happened because I knew I had to turn back to him at some point in this Test match. Allowing him to have a longer spell at the start was almost just justification to say ‘what I was telling you before the game started is going to happen'. Whether or not that was the reason he got seven wickets and won us the game, who knows? That was the whole thought process behind it, just give the people we select the complete backing and not go back on the words that I speak,” he affirmed.

 

“I've been lucky enough to play a lot of Test matches in the subcontinent with a certain Joe Root. I've seen some pretty special innings from him. But I think the situation we found ourselves in, coming in at No.3, some of the shots that we've seen, just that whole innings…190 on such a difficult wicket, he was able to manipulate the field with sweep shots, reverse sweeps, normal sweeps, the way he was able to rotate the strike, for me that's the greatest innings that has ever been played in the subcontinent by an English batsman,” the iconic all-rounder signed off.