Rohit Sharma right man to lead, but India need to handle all-format skipper with care and caution – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Two and a half years back, Rohit Sharma’s Test career was in limbo. After a roaring start to his journey in the five-day format with rousing centuries in his first two Test innings, the gifted right-hander flattered to deceive, managing just one more three-figure knock and ten half-centuries in a further 45 innings.

The dichotomy between his numbers at home and away were staggering. In familiar conditions, he averaged a spectacular 85.44 in nine matches; in twice as many games overseas, the corresponding number was a measly 26.32, five isolated fifties dotting an otherwise barren landscape. It appeared as if for all his magnificence as a limited-overs behemoth, Rohit was finding the red-ball puzzle too hard to crack.

The vast multitude of the cricket-invested in India – which runs into the millions – had given up on the Mumbaikar. Not so the brains trust of skipper Virat Kohli and head coach Ravi Shastri. In a throwback to January 2013 when Mahendra Singh Dhoni resurrected Rohit’s floundering white-ball fortunes by propelling him to the very top of the order, Kohli and Shastri pulled off an encore, against South Africa in the first of three Tests in Visakhapatnam in October 2019.

It seemed a desperate, last-throw-of-the-dice move that, to most, beggared logic. If Rohit couldn’t stand up to a semi-new-to-oldish ball with any assurance, how would he stack up against the shiny new cherry, on fresh pitches and against well-rested quicks?

Quite nicely, thank you, as it turned out.

Rohit responded to the show of faith by making brilliant hundreds in both innings, backing that up with 212 two matches later in Ranchi. Big deal, we all know we can bat at home, don’t we? What about when he travels – let’s say to Australia and England?

What about it, Rohit seemed to ask. A belated entry into the Test team – he missed the first two matches in Adelaide and Melbourne through injury – was marked by scores of 26, 52, 44 and 7 as India came back from the dead to pull off a remarkable 2-1 triumph in January 2021. Six months on, Rohit dispelled any doubts over his efficacy as a Test opener in testing conditions, racking 432 runs in five Tests against New Zealand and England, rounding off the sequence with his first overseas ton – 127 in a match-winning cause at The Oval.

That was in September 2021. India were 2-1 ahead when the Manchester Test was called off owing to a Covid scare in the Indian camp, there were no indications that Virat Kohli was contemplating giving up the T20I captaincy, Ajinkya Rahane was still the Test vice-captain.

The dramatic turn of events between then and now is as jaw-dropping as the second coming of Rohit the Test batsman. Only, as of February 19, 2022, Rohit isn’t just a Test batsman, he is also the captain of the Indian Test team.

Kohli’s surprise abdication of the Test throne last month, Rahane’s sustained poor form that has belatedly invited the axe, Rohit’s rich vein of five-day success and his pre-eminence as a towering white-ball captain combined to catapult the affable 34-year-old to the helm of the Test side too, compelling chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma to call him ‘the No. 1 cricketer of our country.’ That exalted status was Kohli’s until very recently. Oh, how quixotically the wheels of time turn!

That Rohit is the best man for the job is hardly in doubt. One doesn’t need to fall back on his five IPL trophies as Mumbai Indians captains or his stellar record as skipper – stand-in and regular – in ODIs and T20Is to buttress his leadership credentials. With Ishant Sharma out of fashion, Rohit is the senior-most active Indian international, having made his first appearance in June 2007. He is an astute student of the game, blessed with a razor-sharp mind and the ability to think swiftly on his feet, traits that don’t come frequently. His friendly persona masks a steely interior; in many ways, without outwardly being so, Rohit is more like Kohli than most will care to concede.

And yet, he is his own man. He won’t follow a set template, no matter how successful it might have been, just for the sake of it, nor will he willy-nilly tamper with it because he is in a position to do so. Rohit is nothing if not a risk-taker, but his gambles are based on calculations and steeped in logic, not stemming solely from gut feel and overwhelming impulse.

Is captaincy across formats too much of a cross for Rohit to bear, given how much demand there is for the Indian team and that World Cups of two different ilks lie in wait over the next 20 months? Possibly, especially with the litany of non-cricketing injuries that had marred his career, the latest being the hamstring issue that kept him out of the tour of South Africa. More than anything else, that will be the biggest concern for head coach Rahul Dravid and the selection panel – how to manage the multi-format captain’s workload to ensure he is firing on all cylinders at crunch time.

Fortunately, India don’t have too many Test assignments in 2021 — the two-Test home series against Sri Lanka, the postponed Test in England in July, another two-match showdown in Bangladesh in the winter. That’s time enough to recover, regroup and recharge while also allowing the next group of leaders – KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and vice-captain Jasprit Bumrah – to assume greater responsibility and present themselves as viable options going forward.

That the selectors have felt the need to talk openly about grooming skippers is an indication that while Rohit might not be as much of a stop-gap skipper as Anil Kumble was when he belatedly took charge in November 2007, the thinking clearly is that this isn’t anywhere near as long-term an option as when Kohli was made the skipper in January 2015. Time and a protesting body aren’t Rohit’s greatest allies, but his inherent inspirational presence, a wonderful cricket brain and the steady guiding hand of Dravid will serve him well as he ushers Indian Test cricket into the lap of transition.

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