Jonty Rhodes reflects on India's disappointing performance Down Under, says "expectation was really high"

By Vivek Prabhakar Singh
New Delhi [India], January 11 : Former South Africa cricketer Jonty Rhodes on Saturday opened up on Team India's disappointing performance at the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 against Australia and said that "expectation was really high".
Rhodes was speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue 2025 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.
Team India conceded a disappointing 3-1 defeat to Australia in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 and lost the opportunity to qualify for the World Test Championship (WTC) Final at Lord's.
Speaking to ANI, Rhodes said that Test cricket in Australia is really tough and not too many teams had the liberty to clinch consecutive wins on Australian soil.
"Well, Test cricket in Australia is really tough. I mean, not too many teams have gone there in one consecutive away series in Australia, and I think the Indian team had done that in the past. So maybe the expectation was really high. When most teams travel to Australia, everyone knows it's going to be a tough series, so maybe the Indian fans had forgotten that touring and playing in Australia is a very tough scenario both on and off the field because there's always a lot of verbal and some confrontation between players," Rhodes told ANI.
The former cricketer added that one cannot blame one or two players for India's poor performance at the BGT series.
"So to lay the blame on one or two players is always quite difficult. Cricket, we know, is a team sport, but yes, you need everybody to be contributing. So it's a case of understanding what is good for the team, what is good for the country and making sure everybody's in agreement. For me to sit here as an individual and go, this player should and shouldn't, I don't have that opportunity to criticise or judge anybody," he added.
Skipper Rohit Sharma and star batter Virat Kohli came under fire for an underwhelming Border-Gavaskar Trophy campaign and overall a very disappointing 2024/25 season of Test cricket. Sharma (31 runs in three matches and five innings at an average of 6.20) and Virat Kohli (190 runs in five matches and nine innings at an average of 23.75 with a century) lacked big time with the bat. Virat fell for the outside-off-stump trap throughout the series, most notably by pacer Scott Boland who dismissed him four times.
The ongoing 2024-25 season of Tests has been miserable for 'Ro-Ko' (Rohit and Kohli). While Rohit scored just 164 runs in eight matches and 15 innings at an average of 10.93 with best score of 52, Virat scored a shambolic 382 runs in 10 matches and 19 innings at an average of 22.87, with just a century and fifty each.