For the past few days, Rohit Sharma and his men have been walking to the stadium from their hotel across a bridge over the river Torrents. It is a simple pleasure that they can’t indulge in India. Even here, if anyone stops them for a selfie, it’s the Indian-origin fan. They cross the road, walk past the statue of Clem Hill, a legendary cricketer from these parts, at the stadium entrance and breeze through the sliding glass doors into the arena. Thursday was a particularly burning day in Adelaide, temperatures hovering around 38-40 degrees, so hot that the Aussies wrapped up their optional net session within 20 minutes and fled.
A couple of weeks ago, in India, before the birth of his second child, Rohit was moping around alone in the dressing room at the Wankhede Stadium. His teammates had left, the Kiwis were celebrating politely in the room next door, and Rohit sat ruminating. Suddenly, things stir and change dramatically. He becomes a father again, and even as he is “holding the baby in my hands”, his team is thumping the Aussies. On his flight to Perth, he asks for an internet connection to check the match scores. By the time he lands, Virat Kohli is blasting the ball to all around the park. Sometimes, a week can be really long and action-packed.
Twelve years ago in Australia, on the 2011-12 tour, he was facing selection dejection, unable to make his Test debut. Two days before the Sydney Test, he even attended a press conference. Usually, it meant back then that he might play. He would talk about “I would know tomorrow if I am playing”. He didn’t. Coming after a year when he missed the ODI World Cup, his life and career must have seemed like spiralling out of his control.
In a chat with The Indian Express a couple of years ago, he talked about how all the developments in that period made him almost detest the “talented” label. “Kuch matlab nahi hai yaar, that word ka” (It has no meaning). What does it even mean? You have to perform.” Eventually, he would get the chances but he wasn’t consistent. Especially in Tests. Then suddenly Ravi Shastri as coach, and Virat Kohli as captain offered him the chance to open in Tests.
Shastri once told this newspaper about making Rohit the opener. “I had already told him but he wasn’t sure. Then one day, finally, he agreed. I knew he had it in him but he worked his bloody a*** off to make it work.” Shastri would know, after converting into an opener from the lower order. But Shastri’s game, in a sense, was almost suited for the role. Rohit’s wasn’t. He made tweaks in as basic aspects as how he gripped the bat. It hurt his wrists, but he did it for hours together for days to make it a muscle memory. The bat that would flash outside off had to be controlled, and since 2018, he had turned into a classical Test opener. Until recently, in his attempt to set the agenda for the team, he had become a tad too adventurous as an opener.
Now he has to quit that role. He had to make that decision too. “It was an easy decision as a team (to make KL Rahul open at Adelaide), not easy for me (as a player), but very easy for the team,” he said, smiling, on Thursday.
In search of love
Not that he would care, but the four remaining Tests would also determine Rohit’s relationship with Australia. He is a star in India. England too saw the best of him in 2018 as an opener. But in Australia, where he did play important knocks in 2018-19, doesn’t quite have a relationship with him.
Ahead of the series, various media in Australia ran promotions. Some even used Hindi and Punjabi. Kohli’s face was splashed all over the papers and television. Rohit was hardly mentioned. That Australia’s marketing wigs didn’t think Rohit’s face would be a star attraction in Australia was intriguing. Australia has always been like this. In India, we might rate and rave about cricketers performing in other countries, but the Aussies’ respect comes almost only when the players score consistently in their grounds.
Ricky Ponting averages over 50 in Tests but in 14 Tests in India, his average is just 26.48. His only hundred came in 2008 in Bangalore on a paata batting track in a drawn game where neither team finished their second innings. Still, Indian fans rave about him. That doesn’t quite happen in Australia. So, Rohit’s relative anonymity isn’t quite a surprise in this context.
Rohit was last seen in Australia, sitting on the stairs at the Gabba, rising up in joy to celebrate Rishabh Pant’s off drive that brought home a memorable triumph. He now gets a chance to entrench himself in the imagination of the Australian public. He might have loved to do it as an opener but as a captain, he has made the right decision to let Rahul set the template. If things don’t go to plan, Rohit might still open at some stage, but that’s for future.
It’s as a middle-order batsman that he now will have a crack at Australia. It’s what he did growing up as a cricketer. It allows him the freedom to have a pop at the bowlers if things have already gone well for the team by the time he arrives at the crease. If he is walking into a semi-crisis, he has developed the tools since 2018 needed to survive it.
Couple of days before the game, he had a rather long session at the nets, coming early before the rest and batting for two stints. He focussed on footwork and where he stood at the crease. He stood with his back leg on the popping crease, making an effort to plant the front foot down the pitch and facing the bowler. He also took considerable care to land the front foot on his toes, rather than the heel. The toe-landing allows him that mobility to push back if needed, and quickly at that, or lean fully into the forward defensive push or the drive. Or in other words, transfer of balance seemed to be the area of focus. Support staff Abhishek Nayar and Ryan ten Doeschate would give him thumbs up as he walked off eventually, looking satisfied with his training.
Revival, respect
His counterpart Pat Cummins has had a rather interesting week. The contrast between the fortunes of the two teams has been stunning to say the least. A role-reversal, of sorts. Not particularly from inside the camps, but the talk that’s been swirling around them or the outside noise as the players term it. On Thursday, Cummins was posed a few questions about how the team is viewed by the Australians. “Do you feel like there’s almost a little bit of a desire to see this side fail?” “What’s the Australian way of playing” “Is there really a divide within the team?”.
Like his teammates in the preceding days, Cummins kept shrugging and denying. The reactions in the country to the first Test loss has been extraordinary. All this would have seemed so distant when India went down for 150 on the first day at Perth. Bumrah struck, the youngsters stood up, and in a blink, Australians were buried and ever since gasping for breath and copping a lot of heat. But as India found out in Perth, after being whitewashed at home by New Zealand, nothing succeeds like success. A win in Adelaide will bring back not just the series on even keel, but would allow Cummins to continue doing it his way. The outside noise will then drop.
Though to be fair to both Cummins and Rohit, these are two individuals who are at absolute ease with their style of functioning and confident of doing it their way. But irony is indeed blowing in the Australian wind. Not just the Indian captain, but even the home captain is playing to make sure he is respected in Australia.
I’m Manas Ranjan Sahoo: Founder of “Webtirety Software”. I’m a Full-time Software Professional and an aspiring entrepreneur, dedicated to growing this platform as large as possible. I love to Write Blogs on Software, Mobile applications, Web Technology, eCommerce, SEO, and about My experience with Life.
