Impressed with Rohit Sharma's match-winning ton against Bangladesh, former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe said that the top-order batsman is a beautiful player who did the basics right at the MCG.
Rohit, who had just managed 159 runs in six World Cup games before the quarter-final, stroked a calculative 137 to help India thrash Bagladesh by 109 runs. Crowe was mesmerized with the batsman's maiden World Cup century.
"I liked the way he played straight, he did play a solid hand. Shikhar Dhawan has been the one that's playing more aggressive through this campaign, we've talked about Rohit, who's unclear and he delivered because he laid a foundation.
“He's a beautiful player, he did basics very well and then he was able to capitalise when the field obviously started to spread," Crowe said on ESPNcricinfo's video show Match Point.
Rohit paced his 126-ball knock beautifully to help India manage 302 for six after electing to bat first. Crowe, who led a memorable New Zealand campaign in the 1992 World Cup when they lost steam in the semi-finals, was impressed with Rohit's "assured" knock.
"I mean he stroll up by playing straight, I thought his feet moved nicely, he was looking obviously to check it out maybe to get the run rate going.
"But once those three wickets fell and he hit (Suresh) Raina at the other end he really lifted the energy, he just got better and better, in fact he went through the gears beautifully, got on to sixth gear at the end and that's what you've got to do when you're an opening batsman, you get in, you've got to make the most of it," he said.
Talking about the controversial no-ball that gave Rohit a life on 90 runs, Crowe was clear that technology's help should have been sought by on-field umpires Aleem Dar, who was at the striker's end and gave the call, and Ian Gould at square leg.
"Well I think as a batsman, you know, your reaction to the ball on a split second, so you know, Rohit Sharma was obviously trying to capitalise on what looked like a juicy full toss, but the fact is that he was caught on it, was below the waist and all it would take was for the umpire to say - "Can we just check this?"," opined the classy batsman, who is now fighting a brave battle with cancer.
"There is nothing wrong with making the decision square leg or indicating to Ian Gould at the striker's end that he thinks it is a no ball but try and check, takes five seconds and to me that could be 15, 20 runs went," he added.
