Headliner in the opening act
REVIVAL Rohit resurrects start-stop Test career with a fluent hundred in his first outing as opener; India 202/0 on Day One
VISAKHAPATNAM: Two days ahead of the first Test against South Africa, Rohit Sharma had cut a lonely figure in the dying minutes of India’s practice session. He took a stroll near the square boundary, possibly thinking about how a couple of days earlier he had been dismissed for a duck in the warm-up match, in his first real test at transforming into India’s Test opener.
Yet, when it was show-time— the first morning of the Test series—sharma was ready for the biggest challenge in the toughest format of the game.
Thirty minutes after Virat Kohli won the toss and chose to bat, Sharma strode out at 9:30 am and faced the new ball with the same panache as he does in the afternoon starts of the shorter formats. By the end of the raincurtailed day, he had resurrected his start-stop Test career with a fluent and unbeaten 115. Not j ust t hat— al ong wit h Mayank Agarwal (85 not out), the opening pair put together an unbeaten stand of 202 runs, in turn healing the team’s recent troubles in this crucial position.
More than how he middled the ball, it was the way he left them that stood out in Sharma’s first foray as opener. Well aware of Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada’s abilities with the new ball, Sharma decided to give the first hour to South Africa’s new ball bowlers, who had in the past dismissed him on three occasions each. “During the first few overs, the ball will do something. I was just focusing on the basics, playing close to the body and leaving the ball,” he said at the presser after play.
Sharma also immediately understood that the Visakhapatnam pitch was bound to get easier as the day progressed. “I know what happens after 7-8 overs once the shine is gone. It does not swing much thereafter. And from there on it is about taking the game forward,” he would later explain. Such insights are expected of an experienced campaigner like Sharma, but its application is not always easy. Had that been the case, he would not have been in this position, re-branding himself as a Test opener in the first place.
So Sharma took his time and showed respect to the opposition until the South African spinners came in. And once that happened, Sharma was all but unstoppable, smacking as many as five sixes in his 183-ball effort,