Rohit Sharma is the Indian captain. It has been a tumultuous couple of months. They were whitewashed at home by New Zealand and are on the cusp of not only losing The Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade but also missing out on the World Test Championship final. Another factor that has contributed to this is the dismal batting form that the captain has shown. It's these factors that has led to serious consideration of dropping him.
Last year showed that there are frailties for the 37-year-old. He played 14 Tests and only amassed a total of 619 runs. He only scored two fifties and two hundreds in that period. All this equates to an average of 24.76.
His last century came against England in March, in Dharamsala. Since then, he has only been able to acumulate 154 runs over 15 innings. This includes one fifty. This has led to an average of 10.26. Across 5 innings in the ongoing series, he has scored a total of 31 runs. His scores have been: 3; 6; 10; 3 and 9; for an average of 6.20. This is the lowest for any touring captain on Australian turf.
Critics have pointed to his declining footwork and diminishing ability to dominate bowlers. His leadership in the format has also came under scrutiny, with India faltering in key moments. The year underscored his fading impact, prompting selectors to explore younger options and effectively signaling the end of his Test journey.
He said at the conclusion of the Boxing Day Test presser, "I stand where I am standing today. There’s nothing to think about what has happened in the past. Obviously, few results haven’t gone our way. As a captain, yes, that is disappointing. Yes, as a batter as well, a lot of things that I am trying to do are not falling into place. But, mentally, it’s disturbing without a doubt. If you have come here, you want to successfully do what you are supposed to. If those things don’t fall in place, that’s a big disappointment."
He has had the demeanour of a mumbler in a loud bazaar. Tentative, hesitant and unsure. He seems to be prodding at something, something alive and dangerous that could explode on him.
At his best, Rohit Sharma, the cricketer, came across as a guy who took what he was doing really seriously but never took himself seriously. He had that wonderful nonchalance, yet intensity to set and dictate the tempo for his team.
It can perhaps be seen as an overreach, even a cliche but there does seem a wariness, if not weariness, in his visage these days. Definitely, the former as a batsman and the latter as a captain on field.
It’s not the leadership but the batting that’s his main worry. In the 2011-12 tour of Australia, a parallel of sorts was seen in Rahul Dravid. He had started well in the first Test but slowly he kept getting bowled. There were a few murmurs then from a few experts about how it could be something to do with the back-leg movement but one couldn’t discern anything.
In the matches, though, Dravid would seem that one instant late in getting to where he wanted to be. The weight transfer just wouldn’t happen as quickly as he might have preferred. The stumps kept clattering, particularly from Ben Hilfenhaus. When he returned from that tour, he had decided it was time to hang his batting gloves. Technical issues could be sorted out, not ageing.
Rohit Sharma is in a vulnerable state now, trying to figure out if the issue is technical or of age. In theory, Australia should be kinder to him then India’s next big tour of England in July, where the moving ball could really test out his footwork.
His game isn’t quite where it was and hence, the Adelaide Test was a write-off of sorts. He was never going to get going because there were too many challenges for him to overcome: his slow feet, the moving ball, the toughness in picking it off the hand, the conditions.
He had a good chance in Brisbane to get himself going as a batsman and resultantly, as a captain too. There was no real venom in the pitch, the ball wasn’t jagging around. However, he couldn’t. The problem, unlike with Dravid of 2012 vintage, is much clearer.
The strengths in his best years as Test opener are now slowly turning against him. He had transformed himself into a classical opener, almost with two main traits of compactness and stillness. Minimal but precise movement of feet and the hands that just move in line.
The jarring-ness of the distant past had vanished. Back then, he would ground his bat, pick it up from a wide position/angle, the front feet would be planted across – and he would get squared-up to balls straightening outside off or potentially in trouble with nip-backers as he would have to quickly retreat that advanced feet and the pads out of the way.
He figured out everything on his own. "I had to do it on my own," he said once. Slowly, the individual parts of his batting was tweaked: the bat began to be held in the air, it would come down from a straighter angle, the initial front foot angle was curbed, the hands would ease towards the line, and not betray outside off. He had to change his grip, the way he held his bat. A sense of Jacques Kallis-ish compactness had descended on him.
Now that precise minimal movement now seems to have the opposite effect: that his forward stride isn’t big enough; everything seems either a bit shorter or slower.
At the forefront of the issue is that forward stride, which is actually just a short step now. He seemed to have realised that as his main achilles heel. Prior to Adelaide, at nets, he had started to stand outside the crease, with his back leg touching the popping crease line. As if to say, 'if I can’t take a big stride to meet the ball earlier, I shall cut down the distance by standing more ahead than usual’' It didn’t work.
The move to make him open the innings in the middle of 2019 was a last ditch attempt to save Rohit's fledging Test career, an opportunity he grabbed with both hands and came out with flying colours. The best part of the next five years saw him not only rise as India's best batter in Tests but also a brief period where he found success at the top of the order parallelly across formats.
The first and foremost challenge of being an opening batter is how one fares against fast bowlers, especially when the ball, the bowler and the pitch are all fresh. Rohit aced this test exceptionally well averaging a shade under 57 against seamers and surviving nearly 105 balls between dismissals to pace in the four year period between October 2019 to September 2023.
Among the openers to have batted at least 20 times in this period, only Abdullah Shafique (Pakistan) had a better average while only Shafique and Usman Khawaja (Australia) had a higher balls per dismissal ratio against pace than Rohit. From those highs, Rohit's stocks against pace have seen a freefall in the last 12 months, as he is being dismissed every 29 balls.
The fundamental challenge for a batter in cricket, more so in Test cricket, against pace bowling is how one wards off balls pitched on a good length. For a batter to have success over a prolonged period, it's a necessity to have a good, if not exceptional, record against balls pitched on 'good length' as you will be tested in this area often.
There are two aspects that can tie his dip in numbers against pace that are intrinsic to the success of a Test opening batter: how he fares against good length balls and how tight his defensive game is.
Between October 2019 and September 2023, 27 batters faced 1 000+ deliveries on good length from seamers and Rohit Sharma's average of 53.16 was bettered only by Dimuth Karunaratne (Sri Lanka) (60.88) and Kane Williamson (New Zealand) (53.66). The global average for a top-seven batter in this period against these deliveries was 26.60 and a dismissal rate of 65.7 balls - Rohit Sharma's numbers were more than twice as good (avg 53.16, Balls/Dis 132.9). In the last 12 months, the corresponding numbers for Rohit Sharma read 12.00 and 30.5 with only Bangladesh's Shadman Islam sitting below him on both parameters.
There's also the intangible and unquantifiable parameter of 'luck' which is cornerstone to success for opening batters in Tests. An average batter batting in the top seven made a false shot percentage of 17 against good length deliveries from pacers in 2019-23 period, while Rohit's figures read 19.3% - comfortably above the average and the third worst in the world. The two batters above Rohit Sharma and six of the top nine in terms of false shot percentage (1000+ balls faced) are opening batters, emphasising the complexity of the job of opening batters, and that 'luck' is inalienable for their success.
The global false shot percentage average for top seven against good length deliveries from seam in, since October 2023 has risen to 20.8, while Rohit Sharma's has jumped to 28.8 - the worst in the world (300+ balls faced). Old world batting virtues like staying in, tiring out bowlers and scoring ugly runs have given way to batters hitting their way out of trouble. As a result, the year 2024 had witnessed scoring rates soar and dismissal rates plummet to record levels. Rohit Sharma, too, at times, has been guilty of overlooking the ways that brought him success initially at the top of the order, and trying to hit his way out of trouble has proved detrimental.
A possible explanation in his decline can be traced to his discipline at the start of an innings against pace, setting up his exploits from the calendar year 2021 as a benchmark. In the first 50 balls of the innings in 2021, Rohit Sharma still had a false shot percentage of 20.4 which is on the higher side but he left alone the balls 22.5% of the time and attacked just 15.3% as odds are usually stacked against opening batters in this phase.
Post October 2023, the figures flipped around with him attacking 28.2% of the deliveries and shouldering arms to only 14% which has caused his false shot percentage to swell to 28.2%. From getting dismissed every 187 balls to pace at the start of an innings, the numbers have nosedived to a dismissal every 28.5 balls. At times, the best make their own luck and Rohit Sharma has certainly not helped his cause here.
Rohit Sharma had one of the strongest defence game against pace bowling during his prime, the bedrock being his ability to get moving to the ball and knowing where his off stump was. He left balls outside his eyeline and defended well against the ones that needed to be tended and attacked only when the bowlers erred either side of good length. This discretion to attack meant Rohit Sharma's numbers while defending seamers was exceptional: he got dismissed every 130.8 balls compared to the global average of 55.6 for top seven batters - the best in the world between October 2019 to September 2023 (500+ defensive shots).
In the last 12 months, the global dismissal rate among the top seven batters to defensive shots has fallen nearly 10 balls from 55.6 to 46.1. For Rohit Sharma, it reads 17.9 defensive shots per dismissal, the worst in the world (150+ defensive shots). From being more than twice as good an average batter, he went on to become less than half of an average top seven batter while defending seamers.
Rohit Sharma's trigger movements in recent times have meant he is often planting his front foot across without the head following in sync. While this has not resulted in any serious trouble with the fuller balls, it has caused all sorts of issues while playing the ones on good length on the off stump and the channel just outside off, where he has to play just with his hands without proper weight transfer. In recent times, seam bowlers have opened him up while defending that has led to him getting beaten on the outside edge.
In a way, Rohit Sharma's career had a stark resemblance to one of his former team-mate's - Murali Vijay - whose success in one format was intertwined with the failure in the other. Vijay's best knocks in IPL came in 2010-12 when he found himself out of the peripheries of Test side and his glorious years at the top of the order in Tests between 2013 and 2017 saw his returns in IPL plummet.
If there's one trait that defines Rohit Sharma's career, it has been his ability to come up with solutions to problems that threatened his very existence in cricket. Be it him giving up the middle order to role to pursue an opening career in ODI's in 2013 or doing so again in Test cricket six years later or even eke out a more aggressive version at the top of the order. He is facing another problem late in his career with odds stacked against him. If he trumps this challenge like he has done in the past, we will be in for another exciting chapter in his illustrious career.
On ESPNcricinfo, former India cricketer, Sanjay Manjrekar, pointed out Rohit Sharma’s defence getting breached on various occasions. Reminding the England series in 2021, Manjrekar exclaimed he is failing to bring his defence back into his game now.
"First obvious answer is short of confidence (and) self-doubts (on the reason behind not getting over his lean patch) and a bit of a rude shock when he played in that home series against New Zealand, and his defence was getting breached on those Indian pitches. So, in 2021, when he had that terrific series against England – he scored at a strike rate of 42, which is a bit Pujara-like, and in the entire series, he batted for around 21 hours. So, this was a new discovery for all of us. The time came when he had to bring that back on again, he just can’t find the defensive game. So, I guess that is where the problem lies – just gone to pieces basically, his defence. The grit, the patience, has just gone away."
Former coach, Ravi Shastri, has said he wouldn't be surprised if Rohit Sharma retires from Test cricket. However, if selected for a farewell match, Ravi Shastri believes Rohit Sharma should play without any baggage as India fights to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and keep their World Test Championship 2025 final hopes alive in Sydney.
Shastri's remarks came after India coach, Gautam Gambhir, declined to confirm whether Rohit Sharma would play the fifth Test against Australia, stating only that the team would be announced before the toss on Friday.
"If I were anywhere near Rohit Sharma, I'd tell him Just go and smash it. Go out there and have a blast," Shastri said on The ICC Review. "Right now, playing the way he is, it's not looking great. He needs to take the attack to the opposition and see what happens."
He continued, "He'll take a call on his career, but I won't be shocked if he retires because he's not getting any younger. There are young players waiting in the wings, like Shubman Gill, who averages over 40 in 2024. Seeing a player of that quality sitting on the bench makes you wonder. So I wouldn't be surprised, but it's ultimately his decision."
"If India qualifies for the World Test Championship Final, it's a different story. Otherwise, this might be the right time for him to go out with a blaze of glory."
Rohit Sharma retired from T20i's on a high note, captaining India to World Cup silverware in the West Indies in 2024, where he scored two half-centuries in his final three innings. He remains in contention for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy, though his recent struggles in red-ball cricket have drawn scrutiny.
"I think he's a bit late on the ball," Shastri observed. "His footwork, which was minimal even at his best, seems to have declined further. He's often caught on the crease, neither forward nor back. When Rohit moves towards the ball with intent, the right signals are sent from his brain to his feet, and he performs better. He needs to play his natural game. Go out there, take the opposition on, and try to win the Test match. Losing one Test doesn't mean the series is lost."
I firmly believe that this situation is similar to that of The Grinch, where we don't quite know what the source of the problem is. Nonetheless, it seems to me that he needs to move on from the Test arena. Jasprit Bumrah has already shown that he is ready for the leadership role. There are also other batsmen that can fill the opening role. India are seemingly ready to move on from him.