India vs South Africa: Time ripe for one-day beast Rohit Sharma to pass the longform Test

It has been over a decade since Rohit Sharma made his international debut. Then 20-year-old Mumbai batsman did play a couple of One-Day Internationals (ODIs) in Belfast, Ireland, but he caught the eye at the inaugural Twenty20 (T20) World Cup in 2007 in South Africa. Rohit did not get a chance to bat in his debut T20I match against England. It was in India’s next group game against the hosts that Rohit won the Man of the Match for free-flowing 50 off 40 balls in his maiden T20I innings against an attack that consisted of Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander. Unsurprisingly, in three years time, Rohit received his maiden Test call. In all likelihood, he would have had a Test cap in February 2010, but for an ankle injury sustained while playing ‘rocket ball’ during warm-up.

Rohit’s first foreign assignment as a Test player was in 2013 in South Africa, where he played Tests in Johannesburg and Durban. Rohit managed a paltry 45 runs in the four innings at a meek average of 11.25. His overall record against the Proteas in Tests stands at 71 runs from eight innings at an average of 8.87. It has been a completely different story when it comes to coloured clothing. Runs have oozed off Rohit’s willow, like expletives from Gordon Ramsay. In ODIs, he smashed over 560 runs in 10 innings in 2016 at an average in excess of 60, and in the 21 outings in 2017 he scored 1293 runs at an average of 71.83. Even in the shortest format of the game, he has been spectacular. During the second T20I of the series against Sri Lanka in Indore, the opening batsman sent statisticians in a frenzy, scoring the joint-fastest T20I ton and in the process becoming the first Indian to notch two T20I hundreds. Earlier this year, his ODI and T20I exploits prompted the selectors to bestow him as Virat Kohli’s deputy. As Kohli decided to rest for the limited-overs leg of the recently-concluded Sri Lanka series, captain Rohit stepped up to win the ODI series 2-1 and sweep the T20I series 3-0. The captaincy elevated the 30-year-old to hit his straps as he ran amok against the hapless Lankan bowlers, finishing as the top-scorer in ODIs and T20Is. No other batsman has hit two double-hundreds in the ODIs. Rohit slammed his third a fortnight ago. With a truckload of runs, support of the selectors, and a newfound self-belief, the question of him being able to translate it into the Test arena still hovers over him. Consistency eluded Rohit in formative years of his career, but his promotion to the top of the order, coupled with leading Mumbai Indians in Indian Premier League (IPL), has helped the cricketer grow in leaps and bounds. The right-handed batsman has gone under tremendous transformation in the last couple of years and the confidence seems to have rubbed off in red-ball cricket too. Rohit scored three successive fifties against New Zealand in 2016 post which an unfortunate injury kept him out for the most part of the home season, only to mark his return with an unbeaten century against Sri Lanka in the second Test in Nagpur. He added two more half-centuries to his name in the final Test in Delhi. Rohit is ripe and ready to go, but will he get a chance in South Africa to show? There couldn’t have been a better time in Rohit’s career to feature in Test XI, but the same can be said about few other Indian players as well, courtesy the collective success of the Indian team in the past couple of years. Kohli is self-proclaimed admirer of Rohit’s batting ability and skill, so much so, that the Indian skipper was ballsy enough to drop Cheteshwar Pujara from the playing XI, promote himself to number three, Ajinkya Rahane to four just to accommodate Rohit at five in the third and fourth Tests against the Windies in 2016. Things could have gone awry for the Indian side after having lost their top half for 126 in the first innings if it wasn’t for the hundreds from Ravichandran Ashwin and Wriddhiman Saha to bail India out. In South Africa’s bowler-friendly conditions, the team management will have a huge headache in order to zero in on the team combination. With one of the two spinners — Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja — likely to warm the bench and India looking to field five bowlers, finding a space for Rohit doesn’t seem straightforward. Does the Indian think tank consider Hardik Pandya as a proper all-rounder, who could fulfill the third pacer’s role? Or will they play three pacers and Pandya with Rohit sitting out? The option of Rohit playing in place of Pandya seems faint, but if the conditions are suitable and India need to bolster their batting, they do not have to look far, as the limited-overs’ modern great is brimming with confidence to accentuate his prowess in white clothing. As Kohli and his men embark on a highly anticipated 2018, where apart from South Africa, they will tour England and Australia, it must be noted that Rohit is too strong a force to be wasted on the sidelines. The 30-year-old will certainly have to feature in the grander scheme of things in Tests, and if not now, when? Click  here  to read profiles of other Indian players involved in the India-South Africa Test series. Click  here  for the full schedule, when and where to watch the matches, live coverage on TV, online streaming.