A month after his poor form forced Rohit Sharma to drop himself from a Test match in Sydney, the India captain can finally breathe easy after producing a faith-restoring hundred in Sunday’s second one-day international against England.
Rohit quit T20 Internationals minutes after leading India to their second 20-overs World Cup title last year and has struggled in tests.
The Mumbai player turns 38 in April and media reports claim the selectors have asked him about his future plans beyond the Champions Trophy beginning later this month.
Rohit scored two in the opening ODI against England, but Sunday’s 119 off 90 balls was a timely reminder that the elegant opener is not a spent force yet.
One of the cleanest strikers of the ball, Rohit clobbered seven effortless sixes and the familiar sweet sound of the bat whacking the ball announced the 50-overs stalwart was back in his element.
“I really broke it down into pieces about how I wanted to bat,” player-of-the-match Rohit said of his approach.
“It’s a 50-over format ... but you still need to break it down and assess what you need to do at regular intervals and that is what I kept doing. It was important for a batter who gets set to bat as deep as possible and that was my focus.” It has been Rohit’s template in ODIs – assessing before exploding, an approach that has fetched him three 200-plus scores, the most by a batsman, including a 264 that remains the highest individual score in this format. In Cuttack on Sunday, it was a typical Rohit knock where he shunned the cross-batted shots early in his knock before hitting the English bowlers all over the park at Barabati Stadium.
“When you play on black soil, (the ball) tends to skid on a bit, so it’s important that you show the full face of the bat when you’re batting initially,” the right-hander said. “Once I got into my innings, I understood what they were trying to do – bowling into our body and trying to not give any room, keeping it on the stumps.
“That’s where I prepared my plan as well, what I wanted to do with those kind of deliveries, trying to access the gaps which were there.
“It’s about understanding what you want to do as a batter.”
With Gill, his opening partner, Rohit added 136 in just under 17 overs, eating into a large chunk of India’s 305-run target, which they eventually got to in the 45th over to win the three-game series with a match in hand.
Gill, who Rohit called “a very, very classy player” who “doesn’t seem to get overawed” by the situation, was effusive in his praise for his captain.
“He makes things much easier than what it is,” Gill, who scored 60 in 52 balls – his second half-century in the series – said. “The way that he took on the bowlers... we have seen that over the past couple of years, how he’s been batting in the ODIs, and the way he dominated the fast bowlers today was just a treat to watch from the non-striker’s end.”
Raina applauds Rohit effort
Suresh Raina, former Indian batsman, expressed confidence that Rohit would soon score his 33rd ODI century, following his impressive 32nd hundred in Sunday’s ODI against England at Cuttack’s Barabati Stadium. 1
“Look at all those shots in the ‘V’! He used his footwork brilliantly against the spinners. He played fewer dot balls after each boundary and six, focusing more on rotation,” Raina said on Star Sports after the match on Sunday.
“I had already said in the show that today is Rohit’s day. There was a different vibe in Cuttack, the fielding was sharp, and that’s how big players are — they win the series today, and they won’t leave Ahmedabad without seizing another opportunity. That 33rd century is also loading — I’m telling you!”
India begin their Champions Trophy campaign against Bangladesh in Dubai on February 20.