Inside Story of BGT: Rohit Sharma’s energy and brainwork are no longer what they used to be | Cricket News

In a recent episode of BBC’s Desert Island Discs, British comedian Mark Street articulated his love for cricket. “People who don’t get sport think it is just about ball or about a race, but it isn’t. It’s the drama, it’s everything around it, I find it so immensely emotional.”Those following India’s tour to Australia would surely agree. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Gautam Gambhir were the main characters of an immensely emotional drama and with two of them certainly not returning to Australia for another Test tour, a sequel can be ruled out, writes Sriram Veera
On paternity leave, Indian captain Rohit Sharma missed the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He was on a flight during the first Test at Perth. He would later talk about asking the airlines for an internet connection to check the score. It was perhaps the only time during the series when the match scorecard and situation would have pleased him. India were truly in command of the game then.
Like Kohli and Gambhir, Rohit too was pitchforked into an emotionally trying time in Australia. In the 2011-12 series, when Gambhir felt he could become the next captain, Kohli had made his name, and MS Dhoni was trying to find a regular spot for Rohit in the limited-overs leg of the series.
Perhaps, additional pressure, albeit unintentionally maybe, was put on Rohit the public backing of the captain. Because the men sought to be dislodged from the team to get Rohit in were Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and… Gambhir.
When Rohit failed in the first two games of that triangular series, Dhoni would mention the context: “We would look to rotate (in the next game in Adelaide also). I want Rohit to play as many games as possible. It gives him an opportunity to get set. We can afford to give him chances in the first leg of the tournament.” Dhoni went on to mention how the three senior players were costing the team extra 20 runs. There was an element of Rohit turning out to be the fall guy in that series.
And how things pan out in a little over a decade. Rohit opted to drop himself to get a younger man in for the Sydney Test and while Jasprit Bumrah termed it a “selfless” act, in certain sections, that has been viewed as fleeing responsibility.A former player, in anonymity, said as much: “If I were the coach, I would have told Rohit he has to play this game. It was a grassy track, why should a youngster face that responsibility and not Rohit?”
Harsh perhaps, but that’s how conspiratorial whispers go around the corridors of Indian cricket.
Perhaps he sensed the direction of the wind, so Rohit came out all attacking in his best performance of the series: in front of the TV cameras. That he doesn’t intend to leave, that he isn’t done yet, and that he had just opted out of one game due to poor form. It remains to be seen if those words emerged from anger and if he has the hunger to hit domestic cricket to try and turn his form around and prove his worth for selection. It’s Rohit’s prerogative to not quit, but it’s the selectors’ right to pick or drop him. This newspaper understands that they aren’t too keen to have both Kohli and Rohit in the same Test team going forward.
In the 2011-12 Test series, Rohit was desperate to get a toe-hold but it would be Kohli who would star. In the limited-overs series too, it would be Kohli who would explode into the imagination with a breathtaking assault on Lasith Malinga in an ODI at Hobart.
This time though, neither Kohli nor Rohit could manage to take control in Australia. The pre-series promotions in the Australian media had almost excised Rohit out, focusing on Kohli and youngsters like Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill. He tried his best but just couldn’t rev himself up for a performance of any substance.
The skipper did try. For the Adelaide Test, in the multiple nets prior to the game, he tried a new approach, standing outside the crease and having batting coach Abhishek Nayar to observe his back leg’s movement. Only the ball moved in the game, and he couldn’t do much.In Brisbane, he went back to his original stance, feet on either side of the crease, but just couldn’t move towards the ball in time, and the pronounced movement of the Kookaburra ball, allied with a potent Australian attack, proved too much for him. In Melbourne, he controversially reinstalled himself as an opener, though it wasn’t all that foolhardy either as it was the best batting track of the series.
But then, Rohit never went for it, instead trying to bat as if he was mimicking KL Rahul’s guarded approach. It made one wonder why Rahul had to be demoted if the same approach was to be tried a man out of form?
But a ray of sunshine did peep out in the second innings when Rohit stonewalled for an hour as India tried drawing that game to have a chance to win the series in Sydney.
Suddenly, the blinds came down on Rohit’s innings, and perhaps his Test career. Against the run of play, he went for a flamboyant whippy flick across the line to a delivery around off-stump from Pat Cummins. Make.
But long before that moment, he had already almost withdrawn himself from the rigours of leadership that he was famous for. The energy and the brainwork he would deploy on the field wasn’t what it used to be. A slow withdrawal of sorts was visible from Adelaide onwards. The interventions he would keep making with the bowlers and the fielders lessened. Off the field too, word from the camp is that he wasn’t as actively involved as before. And the time Melbourne arrived, a few of his friends from Mumbai had landed in the city, triggering speculation about his future.
Rohit did seem to have visibly relaxed once he made the decision not to play in Sydney. On match eve, he was joking with Bumrah outside the dressing room after training was over, laughing like a kid for a while.
In that TV interview mid-game, he made a point about how the youngsters aren’t ready for captaincy. This newspaper had reported earlier about a couple of youngsters having ambitions of captaincy, and he perhaps sought to put them straight with those comments — send a message not just to selectors and fans, but even to those players.
That was Rohit’s last big leadership move.

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