With Rohit Sharma insisting he’s not done with Test cricket, does ‘Hitman’ fit into India’s future red-ball plans?

Rohit Sharma did his bit to lift the veil of secrecy that has surrounded his absence from the ongoing Sydney Test, confirming that he had stood down owing to his poor form while adding in the same breath that retirement from Test cricket was not on his mind currently.

After a couple of days of intense speculation about the sequence of events leading up to Rohit not playing the decider, with the series and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on the line, it was refreshing to get official word but Rohit’s assertion that he isn’t done with Test cricket yet raises several interesting and intriguing questions.

India will need several things to go their way, starting with victory in the fifth Test against Australia, to be in with a chance of making it to the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) for a third cycle in a row. Assuming that they manage to successfully defend whatever target they set Australia on Sunday’s day three at the Sydney Cricket Ground, their fate will still not be in their hands because the Aussies need to win only one of the two Galle Tests against Sri Lanka in the next month to seal their place in the Lord’s final in June against South Africa.

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India will begin their next WTC cycle in June with a five-match showdown against England. Sunil Gavaskar is of the view that only those players who will be available for the 2027 final – he insists it doesn’t matter if India reach the final or not, just that theoretically, those who start the cycle should be available for selection till its end – ought to be considered for the England tour. By the time of the next final, Rohit will be 39.

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Age is admittedly only a number, and more so for batters than for bowlers. One can disagree with the legendary Indian opener’s point of view, of course. Sometimes, the focus on short-term requirements can supersede long-term goals and there’s nothing wrong with that. But that’s a call for head coach Gautam Gambhir, chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar and Rohit, still the Test captain even if he isn’t the skipper for this specific game, to take at some stage in the next few weeks, if it hasn’t been taken already.

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The steep decline since Chinnaswamy 2024

Rohit’s cricketing world has turned topsy-turvy in a matter of two and a half months. Until the start of the home series against New Zealand in Bengaluru on October 16, he could do no wrong. Not only did India reach the 50-over World Cup final at home last year on the back of an exhilarating, entertaining brand of cricket, they also broke their ICC trophy duck stretching to 11 years by going all the way in the T20 World Cup in Bridgetown in June. Rohit was the chief orchestrator of both rip-roaring campaigns, leading with flair and imagination and authority and setting the tone for the aggressive, attacking style of batting that the team wore like a badge of honour.

When he also led from the front in Kanpur against Bangladesh towards the end of September by bringing alive a Test that seemed headed for a tame finish – India scored at an astonishing 8.22 runs an over for 34 overs to make up for the loss of two and a half days and pulled off a spectacular victory – the legend of Rohit had taken concrete shape.

Then came the decision to field in Bengaluru despite the pitch being under covers for four days before the start of the Test, an implosion that saw India careen to their lowest total at home (46 all out) and after that, it has been an unchecked downward spiral.

India’s 0-3 rout at the hands of the Kiwis at home is too fresh and well documented to bear detailed repetition. That was the just the beginning of Rohit’s woes; his own bat went cold, the runs dried up, India won under Jasprit Bumrah in Perth when the designated leader was away on paternity leave, and when KL Rahul helped Yashasvi Jaiswal put on 201 for the opening wicket in the second innings of that victory, Rohit selflessly moved down the order to No. 6 to ensure that pairing was not separated in Adelaide.

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In his first outings in that position since late 2018, Rohit didn’t find any success whatsoever, and when he moved back to open the batting in Melbourne, the runs still wouldn’t come. Arriving in Sydney, he had only 31 runs in five innings at an average of 6.2. Still, it took courage and bottle to sit himself out, a development unprecedented in Indian cricket. Rohit’s selflessness and his propensity to put team before himself is neither new nor unexpected, but by voluntarily opting to step aside and give the team the best chance of squaring the series, he added even more to the already burgeoning respect he enjoys from the cricketing fraternity.

Where does Rohit go from here?

While that may be so, where do Rohit and India go from here when it comes to Test cricket? Already retired from the T20I format after the World Cup triumph, Rohit’s immediate focus will be the 50-over Champions Trophy, where India’s matches have been scheduled for Dubai. India haven’t won the Champions Trophy since 2013. They have the team to reprise the heroics of nearly a dozen years back and Rohit’s recent ODI form has been excellent, even if his team’s hasn’t been. His last three ODIs, in Sri Lanka in August, netted 58 (47 balls), 64 (44b) and 35 (20b) on pronouncedly bad surfaces at the R Premadasa Stadium where the Sri Lankan spinners had a ball bowling second in a series India lost 0-2 – the first game ended in a tie.

A return to the white-ball format is certain to reinvigorate Rohit; after the Champions Trophy is Season 18 of the Indian Premier League which will give him further opportunities to work his way among the runs for Mumbai Indians. But will white-ball runs rejuvenate his red-ball fortunes? Can Rohit rediscover the discipline of 2021 when he made excellent runs in England while opening the batting in the four Tests possible before the tour was abandoned with one game to play? How deep can he dig into his immense reserves of mental fortitude?

There is no denying that Rohit has earned the right to go out on his own terms. Eventually, he will ask himself if he has the drive, the inner urge, the fire in the belly to reunite with the unceasing demands of the five-day game. If he is convinced he still has plenty to offer, and if he can after that do so likewise with the head coach and Agarkar’s selection panel, Rohit the Test cricketer could be on view again, maybe or maybe not as captain, and perhaps or perhaps not as opener.

A Rohit fit and firing will only be to India’s advantage, given the impact he can have and the reservoirs of experience he can summon. Then again, there are so many buts between now and June, aren’t there?