New Delhi [India]: Former India head coach Ravi Shastri reflected on the pivotal decision to promote Rohit Sharma to the opening slot in Test cricket, a move that reshaped the batter’s red-ball career and turned him into one of India’s most formidable openers in the longest format.
Speaking on the latest episode of ICC Review, Shastri detailed how the idea evolved after observing Rohit’s dominant performance in the 2019 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.
“Batting at four, five, this guy used to get bored. Then I started dwelling on the fact, why is he so successful in one-day cricket? He likes to be out there early. I said, if he can go out there and do it, he has got enough time on his hands to play the quicks,” Shastri recalled.
“He’s got the shots against the quicks, to take them on. The field is up, so Test cricket might be a honeymoon for him if he starts embracing it.”
Rohit, a white-ball maestro, had long struggled to cement his place in Test cricket’s middle order, often failing to convert starts into big scores. But Shastri saw an opportunity to unlock his potential.
“He’d batted enough at five and six, and he wasn’t here and he wasn’t there. He would get his 20s or 30s and throw it away. (I thought) Let’s put him under pressure and send him up (the order).”
The turning point came just after the 2019 World Cup, where Rohit smashed five centuries and finished as the tournament’s top run-scorer with 648 runs at an average of 81.
“I remember telling him in the West Indies, we want you to open. This was (August) 2019, if I’m not mistaken, after that World Cup. He’d had a great World Cup, so his form was very good. And he might have thought of it for a little while, but he was OK.”
Rohit responded to the challenge with conviction. In his first Test as an opener, he struck a century against South Africa, setting the tone for his new chapter.
“Then he came in for the first Test match, and he opened the innings, and he got a hundred. If I’m not mistaken, he got a big 100 in that first innings, and then he didn’t look back because then he seemed to enjoy it.”
Shastri praised Rohit for working on his technique, particularly during India’s tour of England.
“He figured it out, and what I must say is he worked a lot on his technique because I thought his best batting was in England, where you really got to play a little differently, and especially he had to play with soft hands and could leave (the ball) a lot. And he worked on it, which was very good. So, suddenly from nowhere, he was setting up games for you.”
Rohit retired from Test cricket last week, ending a distinguished red-ball career with 4,301 runs in 67 matches at an average of 40.57, including 12 centuries and 18 fifties.