If you have played the game of snake and ladders and remember the gamble it presents, you can draw its similarities with the way Rohit Sharma invents his dismissals. Why do people talk so much about him in particular, both with passion and hopelessness? Why does it seem that when he goes out to bat making nervous gestures, he's accompanied by old demons?
why me?!@#$
When Rohit is batting with form and confidence he's conferred with the clichéd batting adjectives of the highest order. The most remarkable qualities I noticed are his first rate stroke-making ability on either side of the wicket and on either foot, never looking awkward or out of balance. The wrists are borrowed from Azhar and VVS; he could easily be mistaken for a Hyderabad batsman for his game of spin bowling. The stance is free of artifacts and the movement at the crease is liquid, free of jerks. There's no trigger movement, and the ease and control with which he pulls reminds me of Ponting and Dravid after a few years in international cricket and tells us what it means when they say he has extra time to play his shots.
In my mind, the batsmen he could be closely likened to, are our heroes David Gower and Mark Waugh. You watch some videos and you see the nonchalance and style is identical. People call it lazy elegance. He does look lazy even when playing an attacking front foot shot off the seamers, sometimes a bit too lazy in context of the lightning quick reflexes of Virat Kohli. In whatever little cricket he has played, he's looked complete, comfortable. No particular type of bowling has troubled him, no major weakness has been exposed. Unlike most youngsters he's really good with short pitch bowling, and his gift of timing is such that backfoot flicks have gone over ropes. He looks formidable in attack. He looks more like a player who will produce massive test innings than Virat Kohli does and probably more suitable at no. 4.
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His first class average is in excess of 60!
So, what the hell is the problem?
The problem is that he just gets out! Like schoolboys! He plays a loose shot and throws it all away. Is this a temperament problem? Lack of discipline? Lapse of concentration? It is exasperating.
The saga of his ODI failures and comebacks deserve a fat log and to cut that long horror story short, he found a place in the ODI squad, eventually hanging on to the very last favor extended to him to open the innings and since then he's come of age. In 2013, half a dozen fifties, a couple of centuries one of which is the third 200 in ODI, man of the series in the ICC tournament in England where others struggled - he's got off to a somewhat decent start by his standards.
Finding a place in test didn't happen easily. In 2010, he was picked to play against Australia and at Nagpur he injured himself 15 minutes before the start of play, after which he had to wait for 4 years while India experimented with Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina. He debuted in Sachin's last series and became the second Indian player to score centuries in consecutive innings. A friend of mine observed that 'anyone can score centuries at home against WI'.
He went to South Africa and had a horrible series scoring 14, 6, 0 and 25 in four innings. He went to New Zealand and had an average outing, scoring a fighting lone 72, 19, 0 and a 31 not out in four innings. The reputation of English conditions and the absence of Zaheer Khan forced strategists to invoke Binny, who, they wished, could brisk walk through British batsmen with his 115kph good-length good-boy bowling - not to be! So he was dropped and Rohit came in, now losing his no. 5 to Rahane who was picked ahead of him due to the absence of 'snake and ladders' feel about him, and rightfully so. He was nimble, safe and effective and now he's got a ton at Lord's.
Rohit Sharma comes out to bat 1st innings, 3rd test with India behind by about 2 light years. He gets in, again looks in no trouble whatsoever, takes on Moen Ali, gets past 25 runs and 60 deliveries and an hour, and then about 5 minutes before the tea bell, his crease demon finally shows itself! He comes out of the crease and returns a tap through cool air to mid off, and realizing what he had done in less time than he took to play that shot, he chokes, bends over his bat, a spectacle of pure misery!
Sir W.G. Grace
There's nothing wrong in getting out, even Sir W.G. Grace won't be displeased if you told him that you got out for 28 in the first innings, but I imagine if he asked you and you told him how you got out, my friend!
Poor shots seem to have spilled more ink than lack of runs to form that bold full stop next to a cricket career. Especially test cricket cannot afford jokers, even if they come with the promise of dormant powers of aces. I am afraid Rohit, if things do not change for you, with every following mistake, a billion hippocampi storing the horror memories of your ODI epic will quiver with electricity. The Aajtaks and newspapers will be livid with angry analyses and one sad day your file will be transferred to the department of 'could've beens' where we find mention of our not to be greats such as Greame Hicks, Vinod Kamblis and Basit Alis.
If I may offer any advice, get in touch with, while you're at it, a real good exorcist. Score a couple of centuries in the remaining innings and to decimate any ambiguity related to the ethnicity of the demons, consult an established tantrik and jyotish as soon as you return. Till then, with sincere admiration and only good wishes, we hope you have luck and sanity with your innings.
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