Rohit Sharma’s bat was not working. Those were his comments in Sydney, ‘bat chal nahi raha hai’, justifying his decision to withdraw from the crucial fifth Test against Australia in January this year. Prior to Sunday, the lull had lasted 10 innings (9 in Tests and 1 ODI), raising concerns about his future in the sport.
For the first few minutes of India’s chase in Cuttack, his poor form threatened to hold him back for the 11th time at this level. Rohit played and missed in the first over, then leaped into his crease in the second until a full, straight ball with the word ‘outlet’ on it arrived. His flip was plenty of flare, sending the ball over the midwicket boundary for the first of his seven sixes on the balmy evening.
On a dark soil surface where the ball tends to skid, Rohit swiftly assessed the England pacers. Saqib Mahmood was one of his first victims, seeing his off-side deliveries rocket over the cover boundary and the long-off fence for two more sixes.
Rohit’s early onslaught was slowed by a malfunctioning floodlight tower, but he returned moving and feeling well after a 30-minute rest period. His early carousel of beautiful sixes on the night included a fourth, off Mark Wood in the eighth over, whom he blasted over long-on. Adil Rashid was then greeted in the ninth with a sweep behind square and a cut behind point for two fours.
By this point, the image was strangely familiar, even to England. Rohit, with a 30-ball half-century and the desire for more, had awakened the 2023 World Cup version of himself, smashing 597 runs in 11 innings at a strike rate of 125.95. To put that in context, only Glenn Maxwell had a higher strike rate among batters who scored 400 or more runs in the event.
There was a bit of a slowdown in the post-PowerPlay phase, compared to Rohit’s bloodthirsty standards that night. However, the drop-off was not linear, as Rohit stuck to his World Cup strategies and actively sought out run-making paths, no matter how hazardous, even if some of his attempts were not as successful as they had previously been. While England attempted to rectify, Rohit plucked on the strings of his batting tempo like a seasoned puppeteer, continually putting the bowlers off rhythm.
England’s deliberation prompted them to bowl into Rohit’s body and attempt to box him in. However, the Indian opener remained confident at the crease, accessing every region of the ground. The attempts to go short paved the way for Rohit to score additional rapid runs, as he found the fence on each side and over the fielders stationed at deep fine leg, deep square leg, and deep mid-wicket.
The 40,000-strong Cuttack audience erupted with excitement as Virat Kohli’s expected appearance was cut short, but Rohit soldiered on, ice in his veins, keeping their enthusiasm and India’s surge under check. He furiously swiped Rashid and dragged Mark Wood off his length before stepping out and blasting the leggie for his seventh six of the innings, bringing him to his 32nd ODI century. Only Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar have more in this format.
“I really appreciated going out there and scoring some runs for the team. “I really broke it down into pieces about how I wanted to bat,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation after leaving to a boisterous standing ovation for his 90-ball 119.
Rohit made it abundantly apparent during that revealing discussion with the presenter in Sydney that he had no intention of leaving the sport. “There’s no guarantee that I won’t get the runs two or five months later,” he’d told me. He may have been talking to the longest format there, but with 10 days till India’s first Champions Trophy match in Dubai, Rohit walked the talk in one-day internationals, reuniting with his penchant for consistently blasting the ball deep into the night sky.
