For a cricket team, there are few dilemmas greater than when a captain is out of form. There have been rare exceptions in the game’s history, like England’s Mike Brearley, who were picked for their leadership nous alone, but by and large, a struggling captain can lead to an uncomfortable dressing room.
In Rohit Sharma’s case, he wasn’t part of the epic Test win in Perth, one of the finest in India’s history. But now, as we head into the pink-ball Test in Adelaide, he will return. Where does he play, and can he break out of a lean trot that has seen him accumulate a miserable 133 runs in his last ten innings?
Rohit has played more than half his innings, and scored nine of his 12 centuries, while opening the batting. But after Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul put on 201 in the second innings at the Optus Stadium to set the match up for India, it’s unthinkable that they will be separated in Adelaide. In the early part of his career, Rohit was a middle-order batter, and such is Australia’s wariness of Rishabh Pant’s game-changing qualities that it might make sense for Rohit to slot in at No. 6, behind the dynamic wicketkeeper-batter.
He averages more at No. 6 (54.57) than at any other position, and has scored his other three hundreds there. Against a softening pink ball that has lost its sheen, he could well take a heavy toll. It certainly seems a more sensible option that exposing him to a new pink ball that will zip around, especially under lights.
The worry for India is that Rohit has seldom excelled away from home. There was a marvellous 127 at The Oval in 2021 and a century in Dominica last year, but each of his other hundreds has come at home. An away average in the low 30s is indicative of his struggles. In 30 innings across Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, he has a highest score of 72.
A comparison with a Mumbai stalwart of another era is especially instructive. Ravi Shastri was Rohit’s coach when he established himself as India’s Test opener, and they have fairly similar numbers. Shastri’s average of 35.79 was lower, but he made 11 centuries in 121 innings. More importantly, he had a nose for the big occasion, scoring a double-century in Sydney and two hundreds apiece in Pakistan and West Indies, then the most forbidding tours of all.
Anyone who has witnessed Rohit’s full repertoire of strokes knows that talent is not the issue. Application and discipline can be. Let’s not forget too that Rohit scored two Test hundreds earlier this year against England, in Rajkot and Dharamsala. The problem is that he has been dismissed for 20 or less in 12 of his 20 completed red-ball innings in 2024.
After leading the team to a World Cup final and then to T20 World Cup glory, no one is about to quibble about Rohit’s leadership credentials. But with Shubman Gill to come back into the team and other talented youngsters on the periphery, the captain needs runs. A generation ago, Sourav Ganguly answered innumerable queries about his short-ball frailties with perhaps his finest Test innings of all, at the Gabba in Brisbane. Rohit needs to find a similar riposte in Adelaide, even if it doesn’t come at the top of the order.
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— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) December 2, 2024
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