'Panauti' - Twitter accuses Sanjay Manjrekar of commentator's curse after Rohit Sharma misses out on a century

India started the opening day of the Lord’s Test strongly against England. It was the opening partnership between KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma that set the platform for the visitors. Earlier in the day, the conditions were extremely tricky and India’s opening duo applied themselves superbly to deny the hosts wickets in the first session which was marred by rain.

Not many runs came in the first few overs but then Rohit began churning out some easily while Rahul continued playing defensively. The same pattern continued for the whole partnership. Rohit Sharma was compact in his judgement of leaving the ball outside the off-stump but punished anything on the pads.

He continued taking on the short balls and this time, he hit Mark Wood for a huge six as well. It was him who kept the scoreboard moving after getting his eyes in and his technique impressed Sanjay Manjrekar a lot.

Manjrekar lavishes praise on Rohit Sharma

The opening partnership flourished in the second session and the cricketer-turned commentator Manjrekar was praising Rohit for controlling his attacking instincts in both the Tests so far. He kept on giving more details about how the veteran batsman has made adjustments to his batting to succeed in testing conditions in England.

The way he was batting, one seemed Rohit Sharma will easily get to his first century away from home. He was unfazed with the milestone being close and was looking good on 83. This is when the experienced pacer James Anderson came into the attack for his third spell and struck with a brilliant delivery to breach Rohit’s defence.

At the same time, Manjrekar was in the commentary box and was singing praise for the Mumbai batter. And even he was stunned to see Rohit Sharma getting dismissed and missing out on a well-deserved ton. The fans, meanwhile, weren’t happy with Manjrekar at all as they accused him of being a commentator’s curse for Rohit.

Having said that, India built on the brilliant start to end the day strongly at 276/3 with KL Rahul still looking strong unbeaten on 127.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: