Nobody can be as nonchalant and straightforward as Rohit Sharma sometimes.
Three days before India’s second World Test Championship (WTC) final appearance against Australia in England, the Indian captain summed up the conditions during an ICC event in London.
“Look, I think, in England in general, it’s pretty challenging conditions for batters. As long as you are prepared to have a good grind, you can have success,” Rohit said in the presence of Australia captain Pat Cummins, former England batter Ian Bell, and Ross Taylor, who hit the winning runs for New Zealand against India in Southampton during the inaugural WTC final in 2021.
For most of his decade-long and 49-Test career, Rohit has played catch-up to all the delighting comments on his flair and finesse. However, since his move up to the opener’s slot during the first WTC edition in 2019, he has managed to live up to the name while silencing critics with innings of undisputable brilliance.
For all the languidness in his strides out in the middle, Rohit has perhaps gotten his runs opening just when one would have felt he would throw it away, as he has on most occasions in his bittersweet career in whites.
A 161 versus England in Chennai in 2021 and a 120 against Australia earlier this year were efforts where Rohit stood head and shoulders above the other 21 players on minefield tracks.
The years in his profile have helped Rohit open up and make amends for different conditions. The “grind” is an art he has perfected and embodied in ODIs throughout his opening career since 2013. It has taken time, but Rohit now cherishes it in Tests too.
He has also realised the T20 game has moved on and has been among the early advocates from the conservative Indian cricket fraternity to acknowledge that the anchor is a muppet in the format.
He has failed in his recent exploits in T20s—the 2022 T20 World Cup and the IPL over the last seven seasons — a tale for another day.
That England has played a quiet part in rekindling his career comes as a fitting sidenote in the premise of India’s momentous Test and Rohit’s 50th match and first as Test captain in the country.
His early tours to England were all about making a name for himself in at least one of the three formats. While his first, the 2009 T20 World Cup, ended with a horrendous Indian campaign, Rohit returned in September 2011 after agonisingly missing the ODI World Cup that year.
Not considered for the Tests then, Rohit’s limited-overs stint during a woeful series for the visitor, went from bad to worse.
In the only T20I, he fell for one of three balls. A rising Stuart Broad delivery—one that meets the mid-wicket fence most often off Rohit’s blade now—left him writhing in pain after the first ball he faced in the ODI series. He sustained a fracture on his index finger, missing the next four matches and any cricket for nearly three months.
Rohit Sharma leaves the field retired hurt after facing only one ball in the India-England ODI series against Stuart Broad in 2011 at Chester-Le-Street. | Photo Credit: AP
Wedged between two career-defining Champions Trophy outings in 2013 and 2017, the 2014 all-format England tour again injected painful memories for the Mumbaikar.
With India taking a rare 1-0 lead after the second match of the four-Test series, captain MS Dhoni finally decided to give Rohit a go in the third Test at Southampton. Desperate as he was to win over hearts, Rohit chose the flamboyant route and perished.
After settling in with a few boundaries in the first innings, Rohit took on Moeen Ali’s off-spin, lifting it only as much for Broad to settle underneath the ball at mid-off. He fell for 28 and followed up with a restrained six off 28 balls in the next innings before being dropped again.
A dejected Rohit Sharma reacts after throwing his wicket away to Moeen Ali on 28 in the first innings of the India-England Southampton Test. | Photo Credit: AP
Back in the ‘blues’, Rohit made a mark in the second ODI with a slow-paced half-century as India comfortably beat England by 133 runs.
However, the then-27-year-old sustained another finger injury during the knock and ceded his opening spot to Ajinkya Rahane. Rohit did return with a bang, scoring 264 against Sri Lanka, the highest ODI score, in his first match since the layoff in November 2014.
Moving into a potential first full-fledged UK tour in 2018 after finishing as the second-highest scorer in the 2017 Champions Trophy, Rohit lit up the white-ball leg with distinct fervour.
Chasing 199 in the T20I series decider, Rohit slammed a pulsating 100 not out of 56 balls—his third ton in the format—as India comfortably romped home by eight wickets. He followed up with another flawless knock—an unbeaten 137—as India kicked off the ODI leg with another eight-wicket bashing before England bounced back to clinch the series 2-1.
A day later, the All India Senior Selection Committee announced the Test squad for the succeeding four-match series. His lean patch in previous red-ball stints taken into account, Rohit found his name stripped from the 18-member team.
Sunshine past the storm
Shortly after the announcement, a despondent Rohit wrote on social media, ‘Sun will rise again tomorrow.’
True to his words, Rohit drafted a remarkable uptick in his second wind as a Test batter. Thanks to a final roll of the dice from former India coach Ravi Shastri, Rohit found himself at home as a red-ball opener, leading the batting charts for India across two WTC cycles since late 2019.
While he compiled runs at will, the lack of a SENA Test century pegged Rohit amidst all those tours in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa that he had missed partly or wholly due to injuries, non-selection and reasons of varying degrees.
The 2021–22 England tour had to be it. He batted sessions and waded through the craft of James Anderson and the nagging lengths of Ollie Robinson, but failed to amass big runs in the first Test in Nottingham.
With immeasurable composure and never-seen-before-like maturity, Rohit came close with a 145-ball 83 at Lord’s in the second Test, only to have the wily Anderson swing in a dark, 44-over-old Dukes ball to beat his economic defence to hit the off-stump. It was this uneasiness that Rohit was referring to the other evening.
“One thing I realised in 2021, is you are never in (set) and the weather keeps changing. You need to keep concentrating for longer periods and you will get that intuition when it’s time to take on the bowlers. More importantly, you need to be out there, and you have got to understand what your strengths are,” he said on Sunday.
His moment of fruition finally came at the Oval in India’s first victory at the ground in 50 years. Soft-hand slices, a sturdy straight drive off Anderson, full-blooded cover drives, a short-arm jab, leg glances, and a slog-sweep set up the path. A one-legged hook against Anderson got him to 94.
Rohit finally broke the duck of a century outside the sub-continent by smothering the ball over the fence. It was a shot that completed a cycle of tribulation and success.
He stepped out to a loopy delivery from Moeen, as he did before his downfall in 2014 when Tea was just five minutes away on Day 3 of India’s first-innings. Only with more assurance and weight of runs this time, he launched a maximum over long-on to quell some pain over a gruelling eight-career.
Rohit Sharma steps out to smash Moeen Ali and bring up his first Test hundred in England during the Oval Test against England in 2021. | Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES
Among the members of the Indian squad for this WTC final, no one save Rohit has managed a century at the Oval. Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, and Cheteshwar Pujara—Rohit’s seniors in Tests—have only two fifties between them at the venue.
The captain’s role, therefore, will be all the more crucial up top with the bat in what would be just his seventh Test in England. India’s next tour will be in mid-2025 and it remains to be seen if the 36-year-old Rohit will add more to his tally.
Despite the minuscule sample space in Tests, Rohit relishes one of the best records across formats in the country. His nine hundreds (seven ODI, one T20I and one Test) puts him level with Vivian Richards’ five Test and four ODI centuries in England. They are only second to Don Bradman (11 Test hundreds) among visiting batters. Rohit is also one of two batters (besides KL Rahul) to score hundreds in all formats in England.
Rohit has also found the knack of batting himself into form here. After a lowly IPL campaign in 2019 and fitness concerns, Rohit got into the groove with a 122 not out against South Africa on June 5, 2019, in India’s ODI World Cup opener in Southampton. He ended up with the best haul of centuries (five) in a single World Cup edition ever.
Coming off another poor white-ball sojourn in IPL 2023, Rohit may not be in the pink of form, but the positive memories of 2021 should hold the relatively cool head in good space.
A series of narratives will emerge if India trumps Australia for its first ICC title since the 2013 Champions Trophy win in England, in the first-ever Test to be played at the Oval in June over 143 years. A stoic but important chapter for a particular redemption arc, built across 14 years by the Indian captain, could become the cherry on top.
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