Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma bats during a practice session of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy team, at Wankhede Stadium, in Mumbai | PTI
After the debacle of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and evidently struggling for runs, form and confidence, senior India batter Rohit Sharma sweated it out with the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team at their practise session at the Wankhede Stadium on Tuesday.
With the selectors set to announce the squad for the ICC Champions Trophy on January 19th in all likelihood, the veteran was slogging it out at the Wankhede alongside his India and Mumbai team-mate Ajinkya Rahane.
Rohit is expected to lead the Indian team at the prestigious eight-nation tournament set to begin on February 19 with India opening its campaign against Bangladesh the next day in Dubai.
The experienced batter had a forgettable series against Australia with just 31 runs from five innings across three matches and opted out of the fifth and final Test in Sydney owing to poor form.
The brave call by him led commentators and analysts to speculate on his future course of action with several of them assuming that the Melbourne Test was the last time they would see Rohit in the longest format of the game for India.
However, contrary to the perception that he would announce his retirement or take a call, Rohit coming to the Wankhede and grinding it out and doing the hard yards augurs well for him and Team India.
After the conclusion of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar had questioned the commitment of the India players when it comes to featuring in domestic cricket and especially the Ranji Trophy, India’s premier domestic cricket competition.
With the next round of games scheduled to start on January 23, Gavaskar had said he was eager to see how many of the India players would turn up to represent their respective domestic teams.
With news reports confirming that young India batter Shubman Gill would feature in Punjab’s Ranji Trophy match against Karnataka in Bengaluru, it seems Gavaskar’s comments have had some effect.
Whether Rohit plays Mumbai’s next Ranji game against Jammu & Kashmir remains to be seen but him turning up for a hit at the Wankhede and spending some quality batting time is a good sign.
It’s been a decade since Rohit last played a Ranji Trophy game for Mumbai with his last outing being against Uttar Pradesh in 2015.
With reports coming in that the iconic Virat Kohli, who also had a rather unimpressive BGT series, would play some county cricket ahead of the five-match Test series against England, it’s a good indication that Indian batters are itching to get their form and touch back on track to fetch those daddy hundreds and ouble hundreds.
The ICC Champions Trophy would be the first acid test as far as Rohit and Kohli are concerned and both senior batters would understand the significance of the event.
Both players are heavyweights in the ODI format and would love to use that as a platform to get back to groove.
As they say form is temporary and class is permanent and maybe that would just hold true in the case of Rohit and Kohli, but time is ticking now.
