Dinesh Karthik recalls lowest moment in Rohit Sharma’s test career: While everyone knows Rohit Sharma as a destructive opener batter in all three formats of cricket, situations were a little bit different earlier and things were not the same as they are now. In fact, Rohit Sharma’s career flourished in two halves. One in which he saw his rise in the white ball performance and the other when he amended his way of playing the red-ball game.
While Rohit Sharma saw a rise in himself in limited overs cricket after 2013, his aspirations to become a fine test player remained in complete stillness. He was highly inconsistent on the Indian test side and was in and out of the team for various reasons. Being a middle-order batter in the red-ball game, situations didn’t suit him and he often found himself amidst thick dark clouds.
However, just like his ODI and T20I career took a turn when he began to open the innings in 2013, his Test career kickstarted on a solid note when former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri backed him to open the innings in the test format as well. Rohit Sharma was promoted as an opener in 2019 during the home test series against South Africa.
The promotion to the top-order did wonders for Rohit Sharma, as he found the position of his choice. The place where he is most suited. Ever since 2019, numerous openers have tried their hands in the opening position, but Rohit Sharma is the only constant for the Indian team.
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But, on the way to becoming India’s most successful test opener in the recent past, Rohit Sharma too had his share of setbacks that pushed him down. Despite scoring healthy runs in 2017 and 2018 and getting extremely close to the test selection, the selectors overlooked him and preferred Karun Nair on the test side.
Dinesh Karthik recently on a docu-series Summer Stalemate on Cricbuzz recalled how the incident took a toll on Rohit Sharma. “He had almost gone down the path where he was so successful as a white-ball cricketer. He was happy doing that. And when he did come back into the Test team, you’ve got to remember in 2018, he was dropped from the Test team. He was sent back after the white-ball leg and that really hurt him. Rohit Sharma did not see that coming and that really tore him to shreds,” said Dinesh Karthik.
Despite scoring two consecutive centuries, Rohit couldn’t make it to the final list of the test squad. He even scored a couple of half-centuries in 2018, however, fate had some other plans for the Indian opener.
As of now, Rohit Sharma is leading India in all three formats of cricket. While his heroics in limited overs cricket continue, his rise in test cricket has been an inspiration to many.
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