Rohit Sharma has not been performing well in Test cricket, but he is always good in ODI cricket. Recently he played a powerful innings in the second ODI against England. He made his successful comeback by making his 32nd century. During the first ODI, he only faced seven balls and made a score of 2, which made his performance doubtful in the upcoming Champions Trophy. But he gave his best in the second ODI against England on Sunday in Cuttack. He made a score of 119 from 90 balls and also he was rewarded with ‘player of the match’ award. After the game he said that “really enjoyed being out there, 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 receiving his Player of the Match award. “It’s a 50-over format, a little longer than T20 format and a little shorter than Test cricket obviously – a lot shorter than Test cricket – but obviously you still need to break it down and assess what you need to do at regular intervals and that is what I kept doing. It was important for a batter who gets set, needs to bat as deep as possible and that was my focus.”
Rohit’s low performance and limited runs in international cricket was a great concern. During last year, his average was 23.70 in Test cricket, which dropped down to 10.93 in September 2024. On Sunday, he played an excellent innings and made his position strong in the team.
“Looking at the pitch, when you play on black soil, [the ball] tends to skid on a bit, so it’s important that you show the full face of the bat when you’re batting initially,” he talked about his approach. “Once I got into my innings, I understood what they were trying to do: bowling into our body and trying to not give any room, keeping it on the stumps.”
“And that’s where I prepared my plan as well, what I wanted to do with those kinds of deliveries, trying to access the gaps which were there. It’s about understanding what you want to do as a batter and… obviously got very good support from [Shubman] Gill to start with and then Shreyas [Iyer] as well.”
Rohit Sharma, along with his opening partner Gill, added 136 runs in just 17 overs, chasing a great score of India’s 305 runs target, which they fulfilled in the 45th over by winning the three-game series.
Rohit praised Gill and called him “ a very, very classy player” who “doesn’t seem to get overawed by the situation”. Gill passionately added positive words about his captain.
“He makes things much easier than what it is,” Gill, who made his second half-century in the series by making 60 runs – said. “The way that he took on the bowlers… we have seen that over the past couple of years, how he’s been batting in the ODIs, and the way he dominated the fast bowlers today was just a treat to watch from the non-striker’s end.”
It’s a positive indication for India ahead of the Champions Trophy, which is going to start from February 19. Their Captain has been fighting for runs in Test, has resigned from T20 cricket, but is an amazing player of ODI cricket.
