Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli: What Edgbaston revealed about two batsmen without a safety net
4 min readChennaiJul 14, 2026 09:33 PM There is something Rohit Sharma needs more than runs at the moment. It is the assurance that his place is safe for now as far as the plans for the 2027 World Cup are concerned. Since announcing his retirement from Test cricket ahead of the Australia tour last October, Rohit’s string of scores in ODIs before the IPL read: 8, 73, 121*, 57, 14, 75, 26, 24 and 11 against South Africa and New Zealand. This season, which began with a cloud of uncertainty around his future darker than ever, he had returns of 16, 48 and 79 against Afghanan.
On Tuesday, at Edgbaston, he was dismissed for 11 off 21 deliveries. More than the runs, the noticeable change is that the attacking template which set the tone at the 2023 World Cup has quietly disappeared. It was Rohit who, back in 2022, gauged the trend in white-ball cricket and laid a blueprint that India followed through to the T20 World Cup. The plan was simple: go on the offence from the word go. At the 2023 Asia Cup and World Cup, he ensured games were taken control of India in the batting powerplay, his stunning assaults making the job easier for the rest to follow. Even at the 2025 Champions Trophy, on challenging conditions in Dubai, he would not go back on the template. All of this was possible because, as captain, he knew his spot was secured. In the event of failure, there was nothing to worry about.
But times have clearly changed. The same freedom has not been visible in Rohit’s batting of late. In its place is a batsman who needs runs next to his name, runs that would keep him not just in discussion but hard to ignore. What it has caused is a different version of Rohit, one who appears to be reverting to his old formula of starting watchfully before shifting gears rapidly as he prolongs his stay in the middle. It is what brought him three double centuries in the format and a string of daddy hundreds, including in England and Australia.
That formula was so captivating that Virat Kohli, who had built his own successful ODI template, replicated it against South Africa and New Zealand. For a batsman who had been conservative at the start and rarely went aerial, he began to play bold, charge at the pacers, and take a full-blooded swing. All of it happened regularly when he walked in during the powerplay, and once the first powerplay was done, he milked runs effortlessly. It was a clear sign of a template being embraced everyone.
Instead, the two are in no man’s land as far as their World Cup futures are concerned, Rohit more so. Chasing 259 for their first win of the tour on a challenging Edgbaston pitch, his knock was filled with caution. Perhaps the extra bounce the seamers extracted all day made him play with restraint. But when Shubman Gill showed intent at the other end, one wondered what the Rohit of 2023 would have done. He preferred to take risks. He did not hesitate to charge at the bowlers. Here, instead, Rohit appeared tentative, played a couple of false shots, before falling while charging the medium pace of Sam Curran.
And then came Kohli. Of late he has looked intent on attack, and the urgency with which he pulled Archer, so quick on the seamer’s pace that it raced away to fine leg, suggested the same. A battle loomed. Kohli, perhaps anticipating the short ball, went deep in his crease. Archer responded with a sucker punch, full, shaping in, thudding into the pads. Archer appealed. The umpire’s finger went up as Nasser Hussain said: “Kohli comes, Kohli goes.” The task of finishing it was left to Gill and the middle order.
As for Rohit, he had walked off mouthing to himself, bat swinging through the line of where the ball had been, showing himself how he should have played it.
