Rohit Sharma has watched several versions of Australia, just as Australia has beheld different iterations of Rohit Sharma. When he first landed Down Under in 2008, Ricky Ponting was the captain, the troika of Bill Lawry, Tony Greig and Richie Benaud were still commentating.
In the next 17 years, Australia’s ODI leadership would change half a dozen hands, the ODI emperors would stack their cupboard with two more World Cups, and would painfully endure the death of Phil Hughes and Shane Warne.
In this span, Rohit’s narrative too traced different arcs. Australia has seen him as a wunderkind, drooled on his nonchalance when he square-drove and square-cut Mitchell Johnson in Brisbane, his first sighting in the country, and in the subsequent years as a withering prodigy, a reborn batsman, a destroyer in his prime, and a declining force, as a captain and Test batsman.
Spectators of a certain vintage would recount his partnership with Sachin Tendulkar in the first final of the tri-series , his stroke-ful 66, the pulls and drives, lost years, the doomed shots, the 134 against Bangladesh in the 2015 World Cup, the successive hundreds on his next visit in 2016 for a bilateral series, the what-would-have-been Test knocks of the 2018-19 series, the fading captain of the 2024-25 series.
Now, just like in 2008, he returns without the captain’s crown. In five expeditions to the sunburned country, he has amassed 990 runs at 58.23 in 19 games. It has been a happy shore for Rohit’s ODIs.
The latest could potentially be his last trip to Australia. He has farewelled from Tests and T20Is. The 50-over future is uncertain. He is 38, the curtains a nudge away from dropping on one of the greatest ODI shows of all time.
But paradoxically, he finds himself in an uncannily similar (though not exact) juncture as he found before the 2008 series. He was 20, just two games old, the eyes of the world on him, the eyes of Rohit too on the world, wanting to show his worth.
He was sparklingly fresh-faced with an impish grin, considerably leaner, and ready to fling his body on the ground. Streaks of grey have long sprouted on his face; the rebelling joints don’t enable the spring for the leap.
But now, as then, the eyes of the world are on him (and his comrade in arms, Virat Kolhi, in a similar plight). Rohit would feel the gaze as stringent as it was then. He has already blazed his legacy. There is nothing more to prove or boxes yet to be ticked.
But to prolong his career, to realise the dream of one last shot at the World Cup, he needs a feast of runs in the three-match ODI series. Unlike in 2008, a next chance might not knock on his door. Three semi-failures and he could no longer be an Indian cricketer, never wearing the blue jersey again.
Every failure will swell the pressure again and will drag him closer to the exit gate. It’s a cruel fate for an epochal player like Rohit. But it’s the cut-throat ethos of modern professional sports.
The farewell of dreams might go unfulfilled. The churn around them is such that the two pillars of Indian cricket–he and Kohli–are living on the edge. He has been replaced as captain, with both chief selector Ajit Agarkar and head coach Gautam Gambhir non-committal about his and Kohli’s future.
“Look, the 50-over World Cup is still two-and-a-half years away, and I think it is very important to stay in the present,” Gambhir said in a press conference after India beat West Indies 2-0 in their Test series. Agarkar chimed in during NDTV Summit: “In two years’ time, we don’t know what the situation is going to be. So why just them two? It could be some other younger players [who might miss out on the tournament].”
Rohit would be knocking on 40 by then, but there is little concern over his form to warrant a tweak. His last knock was an 82-ball 76 on a sluggish Dubai surface in the Champions Trophy final, with India successfully chasing 252.
The restraint he exhibited in the series shows he can still straddle different roles. He could be as hyper-aggressive as he was in the 2023 World Cup; he could effortlessly switch to an anchor-accumulator’s role, too.
India have other openers to fill in the aggressor’s role. Abhishek Sharma would be a classic case. But there are not too many who could accumulate, or render conditions irrelevant, as Rohit. Abhishek against the moving, bouncing ball is yet to be gauged. Can he accumulate on a sluggish track?
Can he survive when the ball is swinging? Forcing a change just for the sake of changing could turn counter-intuitive. Would he be as consistent as Rohit? Since the start of 2023, Rohit has averaged 48.97 in 37 innings, despite the bravado approach (a strike rate of 117).
The looking-ahead argument of the selector-coach duo isn’t without rationale. They want to invest in a young captain, groom him by the 2027 World Cup, and forge a youngish team with energy and zest. There is not a glut of ODI fixtures; the calendar eaten away by Tests and T20Is, to patiently form a group.
But fast-tracking their departures is perhaps not the wisest solution either. But it has thrust the careers of Rohit and Virat into an unusual spot, the two undisputed legends of the format having to establish their chops at the backend of their career.
A new chapter begins, a chapter that could be an epilogue too. And there could be one last version of Australia that Rohit could see and one last iteration of Rohit that Australia would see.
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