It was January 2019, and Rohit Sharma had just reached the hotel in Sydney after a quick trip back to India for the birth of his daughter. We bumped into each other in the hotel reception, and soon after we greeted each other, Rohit took out his phone to show a few photos of the newborn. “It is so tough to leave her back in India and travel,” he said. “As a father, it is very difficult. You want to be with them and experience it all.”
Two years later, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was yet again faced with a similar dilemma. He was in hard quarantine in Melbourne when his daughter turned 2. Rohit had not travelled with the team and that meant he would be denied the privileges offered to them. They were moving from one bio-secure bubble in the UAE to another in Australia and, as a result, were allowed to train while serving the mandatory two weeks of quarantine. In Rohit’s case, things were different. He would have to fly a commercial airline and that meant he wouldn’t be allowed to train for 14 days, and would be confined to a hotel room.
“This is very difficult, I can assure you, and I can also tell you I wouldn’t do this ever again,” he told me back then. “In fact, no one should have to go through this. It is that hard. Having said that, I am convinced I did the right thing by coming to Australia.”
Yet one more time, Rohit is faced with a similar situation. Ritika, his wife, and Rohit have just been blessed with a baby boy and, needless to say, it will be a tough call to travel. Having said that, he is the captain of this team and has taken such decisions in the past.
To go back to 2021. The 14-day quarantine meant he would just get 2-3 days of practice ahead of the Test match. It was fair that we asked him if the chance of failure ever cropped up in his mind. Was he not afraid that he would be stepping out to open the batting against the world’s best fast-bowling attack with very little preparation?
“My dream is to play Test cricket for India and that’s what I am doing,” he said candidly. “If I fail, that’s okay with me, but not trying isn’t. That would not seem right and in the end, it is about doing things that you feel are right.”
Will he try again? Is it possible that Rohit travels to Perth with five days still left for the start of the Test match?
In 2021, Rohit did not score too many in the two Test matches in Sydney and Brisbane. But in each of the first three innings that he played, he successfully did two things for his team. First, he played out the new ball which helped set up the innings for the batsmen to follow. Secondly, in each innings, he gave the team a start, which was hugely important in the circumstances. It is also pertinent to say that at no point did Rohit look uncomfortable. Against a quality pace attack, he still had that extra split-second to play.
India will hope he can do so again.
Also Read: Tendulkar’s 114 as a teen in Perth – What lessons can modern-day India take from it?