“Rohit should take a leaf out of Virat’s book,” says the fielding coach of Mumbai Indians, Jonty Rhodes. He wants to see the talented batsmen like Rohit Sharma to score tonnes of runs at international level and with the recent success as an opener he would like him to make his conversion rate better. He applauded Ravindra Jadeja, Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina for fielding well in the ICC Champions Trophy 2013.
Rhodes was quoted by The Hindu saying, "He is now opening the batting for India, so it's a new position for him. He has to find his feet somewhere. As a player he can play anywhere. I really think he is a special player. Good to see him get the opportunity and hopefully convert that and establish himself in the side.”
"If you watched IPL 5, he won us a lot of matches by playing through the innings. In a 20-over game scoring 50 or 60, that is winning the game. He has to convert that," he added.
He wants to see that Sharma should be scoring some big runs in the shorter format of the game and he should learn that rate of conversion from his teammate Virat. Rhodes was quoted by Deccan Herald saying, "Virat Kohli's conversion rate from 50s to 100s is pretty amazing. Once he gets in, he certainly goes through. Maybe it's a skill that Rohit would take on. He is so gifted and being so talented he plays so many different shots."
Coming down to his favourite department that’s of fielding, he said, "I didn't see all the matches in Champions Trophy but from what I have seen from IPL, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, (Ravindra) Jadeja, they all are superb. What IPL has done is that it has introduced a whole new level of fielding.”
Decision Review System has been under scrutiny especially after the kind of chaos that has happened after the end of couple of Ashes Tests. But former batsman still believes that it’s more because of human error and not because of technology. He emphasises on the fact that technology does more good than harm and that’s why that has been used in the game of Cricket.
Meanwhile the reports in Bangalore Mirror quoted him saying," I support technology. Innovation or technology, anyway you can make the game fairer to both teams. It might be wrong sometimes, but it is wrong for both sides. Unfortunately human error is something you can't get away from but if you can reduce that then you have a role within the game.”
"You may say we are not going to use it because it is not 100 per cent fool-proof but it does reduce the possibility of getting it wrong on the field. I think it is fair for both the teams," he concluded.