Indian skipper Rohit Sharma’s flawless innings of 119 off 90 balls against England in Cuttack on Sunday evening sent the best in the world into raptures.
This was the Rohit Sharma of the old — the timing was perfect, the shot selection decisive and there was not a single inkling of the preceding run of low scores that had resulted in many people questioning him about his poor form.
India has really produced one of the best batsman in the world.
Rohit Sharma has been under some pressure considering his run of low scores especially getting out for two in his first ODI in six months against England in Nagpur and the whispers grew only louder on what lay ahead for the Indian skipper-cum-opening-batsman with the Champions Trophy up ahead.
If you see his batting from a distance, you can see he has plenty of time to play his strokes. Without a doubt, he is one of the best batsmen you have produced
Batsmen go through lean spells. He has scored in tests, ODIs and T20is. He is very experienced.
According to Kiran More, former India wicketkeeper and chairman of selection committee, Rohit always has so much time when he bats.
Rohit already is a great player. He is one of my favourite players, always bats with so much time.
Rohit admitted after the Cuttack game that, he really "enjoyed batting" out there and scoring some runs for the team. He was also adjudged Man of the Match for his superb innings in the middle.
I really broke it down into pieces about how I wanted to bat..
It's a 50-over format, a little longer than T20 format and a little shorter than Test cricket obviously - a lot shorter than Test cricket - but obviously you still need to break it down and assess what you need to do at regular intervals and that is what I kept doing. It was important for a batter who gets set, needs to bat as deep as possible and that was my focus.
Kiran More was not bothered with the lean patch that the batter, named Hitman for his exploits in ODI cricket as the only batter to score three double-centuries, went through recently.
I enjoyed watching his innings in Cuttack. He was in full flow and it was beautiful batting by him.
Zaheer Abbas brushed aside calls for Sharma calling time on his India career.
If he is scoring runs like this he can stay for as long as he wants.
Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai and India team-mate Wasim Jaffer said it was vintage Rohit batting in Cuttack.
It's a very sublime innings. It was a vintage Rohit Sharma innings. To come out and play like that says a lot about him.
Jaffer further added that for Rohit to come out and play like that says a lot about him.
When you are under pressure sometimes you tend to restrict yourself but Rohit came out all guns blazing. He was absolutely in control.
Jaffer felt that "in ODI cricket definitely Rohit could continue. The entire call (to call it quits) is his“.