Rohit Sharma, who has usually opened the batting for India in Test cricket since 2019, has confirmed that he will be moving down the order for the day-night Test match against Australia in Adelaide. His reasoning suggested it might be a temporary measure, but it is clear that KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal have done too well as an opening pair, adding 201 in the second innings of the Perth Test to set up India’s victory, to be separated immediately. That means even though Rohit is the captain of the side, he needs to make an adjustment and play out of position.
“How I came to that decision of batting down the order is because we want results, we want success,” Rohit said on Thursday. “And those two guys at the top – just looking at this one Test match – they batted brilliantly. I was at home with my newborn in my arms and I was watching how KL batted. It was brilliant to watch, to be honest.
“And I felt that there’s no need to change that now. Maybe in the future things will be different, I don’t know. So based on what has happened and what KL has shown outside of India, he probably deserves that place at this point.
“It is something that has given us success in the first Test. To have that big partnership with Jaiswal on the other side probably won us the Test.”
Rahul might not have got a century but he was excellent across both innings in Perth. Jaiswal did get a century, bouncing back from a duck in the first innings, and was feeling so good in the middle that he was happy to point out that Mitchell Starc was coming on too slowly and Nathan Lyon might be a legend but was getting old. India made 487 for 6 declared and won by 295 runs.
“When you come to a place like Perth and you get 500-odd runs, it’s a massive tick in the box,” Rohit said. “What I saw from the outside looked brilliant and there was no need to change anything.”
Just as he was winding up his answer, Rohit offered a window into how the team wants to operate whether they win, lose or draw. They do not seem to bow to stature as much as they have previously been perceived to. Here, for example, the captain was giving up his spot to Rahul, who played only one of the three matches in their previous Test series.
“It was actually pretty simple for me,” Rohit said. “Personally, not easy, but for the team, it made a lot of sense.”
Team-first is the philosophy that fuelled India into picking the XI they played with in Perth because it meant leaving two men with a combined 800-plus Test wickets out.
“It’s always hard to leave out experienced players like [Ravindra] Jadeja and [R] Ashwin. But I think the decision was made for whatever was best for the team at that particular time.”
In Canberra, India’s assistant coach Abhishek Nayar spoke highly of the two spinners for taking the decision well. Ashwin made his way onto the field just as his replacement Washington Sundar was about to begin his spell and, having tended to his duties as 12th man, he made sure to go up to the bowler for a quick chat before leaving the field.
It was 37°C on the eve of the match and the Adelaide pitch was kept under the covers to protect it from the heat. Chances of thundershowers that were forecast for the first day have also receded and the mercury is set to keep soaring, which could possibly bring spin into the picture even with the pink ball. Ashwin was seen working on his batting with head coach Gautam Gambhir sending him throwdowns.
“I certainly see them playing a huge role in the rest of the series,” Rohit said about Ashwin and Jadeja, “because what they bring to the table can never be written off.” And about Washington, he said, “We have seen what he can do with the ball, with the bat. He’s got a solid technique to play anywhere in the world. And when such guys are in the team, you get confidence. And with Washy especially, now I just hope that he stays away from injury and doesn’t get injured. Because a player like him is always valuable to our squad. [He] gives us that balance, that depth that a team always requires. So with Washy, I can see his graph from here going up only.”
“We have seen what he [Washington Sundar] can do with the ball, with the bat. He’s got a solid technique to play anywhere in the world. And when such guys are in the team, you get confidence”
Rohit talked up the young batters in his side too. He was asked to explain how Jaiswal, Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant have been able to find success overseas very early in their careers.
“The youngsters nowadays are fearless. They don’t carry any baggage. Jaiswal, Gill, Pant – these are the cricketers of a different generation,” Rohit said. “When we had come to Australia for the first time, the only thing in our minds used to be how to score runs. We would put extra pressure on ourselves. But every generation is different. Today’s players are bold and fearless, and perhaps this is working in their favour.
“Whenever I talk to them, they have only one thing in their mind: how to win the match. They don’t think of how I would score a hundred or a double-hundred. When you start thinking like that, the individual performances take care of themselves. Because if you have to win, you will have to perform – and that happens automatically. If your primary focus is how to win matches, series, tournaments, then the big runs these guys make that is secondary.
“If they are not able to contribute with the bat, they think what they can do in fielding, or bowling. So the guys these days think like this, which is a very, very good thing. I don’t know if someone talks to them about it, tells them. But this is their natural mindset when they come for a tour – their mindset is how to win the match.”
