Cheteshwar Pujara is synonymous with simplicity. It reflects in his cricket. “It was a tough wicket to get boundaries,” he said about his marathon 502-minute innings in Nagpur during the second Test against Sri Lanka, in comparison with the skipper’s breezy 259-ball double hundred. “No other batsman could have started the way Virat Kohli did. It is his confidence and the way he has been batting in the last 2-3 years.”
The contrast is unmistakable. Pujara’s job in this Indian team is to bat for time and shield the middle order. Kohli – despite his workman-ethic in rotating strike – provides wonder in his shots that Pujara doesn’t. Those cover drives, those flicks through mid-wicket – not many in this Indian batting line-up can play those from the word go.
Even so, there was one who came close to matching the aura of Kohli’s shot selection in Nagpur. He swivelled on his back-foot, yet controlled the pull shot, carefully caressing the ball in front of square, just past the umpire even as the fielder in the deep had no chance. He is an enigma for Indian cricket, and playing his first Test since October 2016, Rohit Sharma showed just why.
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Following the disappointment in the 2007 ODI World Cup, Indian cricket was in search of some inspiration. Rohit’s international debut coincided with that period.
His outings in Ireland, the inaugural World T20, and the CB series Down Under thereafter, showed enough promise that the future was in safe hands. He was automatically christened the next best thing to emerge from Mumbai cricket after Sachin Tendulkar.
Remember, it was a time when the likes of Kohli (international debut in August 2008), Pujara (international debut in October 2010) and Ajinkya Rahane (international debut in August 2011) were still finding their footing in domestic wilderness and were nowhere near the international stage. Rohit had a head start of more than a year on Kohli alone, never mind the others.
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Twelve months is a long time in international cricket. And missing out on red-ball cricket since the match against New Zealand in Indore last October, nobody knows this better than Rohit. Pujara and Rahane are both ahead of him in the pecking order and are the backbone of any Indian Test XI. Meanwhile, Kohli is untouchable in stature, and some do argue in hushed whispers – ‘Rohit could have been in those shoes instead’.
But this is the thing about him. In Sri Lanka, when Hardik Pandya played all three Tests ahead of Rohit, he could only shrug and put that disappointment behind him. And there is definitively some disappointment, concealed deep within, for a late Test debut in 2013 (six years after his ODI debut) and only 22 Tests thereafter tell a tale of unfulfilled promise.
“There will always be regrets in your life. People will always remind you about disappointments. That’s the world we live in. But I don’t look at what has happened in the past,” Rohit said after his century in Nagpur.
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Just after his double-ton, Kohli played a reverse sweep to backward point and collected four more runs. He was having fun, toying with the Sri Lankan bowling, if you will. It was an audacious shot, yet not the only one played in that little passage of play.
What enthralled the Sunday crowd at the VCA Stadium was that Kohli’s partner was matching him stroke-for-stroke, and the visitors’ bowling was ground to pulp. Rohit arrived at the crease and stroked his way around in an under-stated confident manner. His first scoring shot was a boundary through cover. His second boundary a six – it was simply indicative of a batsman in form, carrying his purple patch over from the shorter formats, when a chance presented itself.
He has had such opportunities in the past, but not made good use. When it comes to Test cricket, shot making was never his problem. But shot selection was. Remember Southampton 2014? Time and again, he would lose his wicket to soft dismissals even if the situation demanded that he buckle down. It only built a narrative against Rohit, particularly as India’s struggles became apparent in that long overseas cycle in 2013-14.
It was during that same time-period when his spot in the squad was repeatedly under scrutiny, the team management responded by affording him an even longer rope. “He was never out of contention irrespective of format. He was there or thereabouts in the Test squad, and in the shorter formats, he was promoted to the opener’s role. We couldn’t possibly ignore the quality Rohit possesses. If you do not give a long rope to such a player, then whom else do you give it to,” Saba Karim, former selector who witnessed Rohit’s up-down trajectory in his formative international years, told The Field.
Away from the whites, Rohit created an identity of his own. Maybe, the team management’s surety in his utility in the shorter formats helped too. What started as an experiment in 2013, became a certifiable ploy by the 2015 ODI World Cup, and Rohit has never looked back since. Promoted to the opener’s role, his progression from an also-ran to currently the Indian ODI/T20 teams’ second-most reliable batsman has been stupendous.
It was in the 2009-10 home season, in the series against South Africa, when Rohit lost a golden opportunity in the second Test at Nagpur to make his debut owing to injury. Eight years later, he returned to the VCA Stadium as the Indian ODI/T20 vice-captain. It isn’t easily fathomable, but at times even players with ability such as his need re-affirmation that ‘yes, I do belong’.
And his latest century – a long-awaited one in whites – has the potential to herald a new chapter. “He made a statement. When we speak of combinations in the future, Rohit will definitely be in the fray,” said Kohli, post the second Test.
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From top to bottom, whether for openers’ slots or pace combination, even the lone spinner conundrum, the Indian team management is jousting with a plethora of options in the playing XI Thus far, the middle order has only seemed assured, devoid of experimentation, and moulded in stability. That perhaps wouldn’t change still, but focus will be on whether the skipper prefers a bit-part all-rounder.
A full-time batsman at No 6 instead, as an enforcer later in the order, provides batting depth particularly if they face up Kolkata-like wickets (rest assured they will) and decide to go in with only four bowlers. It is almost like Kohli was itching for more permutations to play with, and for once, Rohit didn’t disappoint.
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