‘Resting’ Rohit Sharma Was the Correct Decision, Even if India Lose Sydney Test

Irrespective of what happens at the SCG over the next four days, Gautam Gambhir & Co. have made the right call.

India vs Australia: Why India made the right call by 'resting' Rohit Sharma.

(Photo: BCCI/Altered by The Quint)

This is an oddity. Atypical, in a nation that deplores every departure. To an extent that essayist Balmukund Gupt documented how the citizenry even mourned the conclusion of Lord Curzon’s tenure as the Viceroy of India, despite the malfeasance enforced during his regime.

India never mastered the art of letting go. It never wanted to. Unsurprisingly so, there has never been an Indian captain to lose his place in the team amid an ongoing series.

Indeed, the occurrence is not unprecedented globally. Sri Lanka, in fact, won the 2014 ICC T20 World Cup after their captain, Dinesh Chandimal, opted to abdicate his throne.

Yet, it remained unprecedented for the Indian team. That was, until today.

Rohit Sharma, for all that he said about working on his fallibilities in the post-match presentation of the fourth 2024-25 Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) Test, was not provided with the opportunity of implementing whatever changed he had inculcated. His captaincy responsibilities were assigned to Jasprit Bumrah, his batting position to Shubman Gill.

We might have seen the last of him in Tests, or we might see him against England in June. Despite a troubled start, India might pull off a remarkable victory at the Sydney Cricket Ground – a stadium where Australia have not lost a Test since 2011. Or, they might not. Having scored 20 runs in the first innings, which is already twice Rohit’s highest score in this series, Gill might play a crucial knock in the second innings. Or, he might not.

Regardless of the outcome, however, the team management, led by Gautam Gambhir, has made the right decision by looking beyond Rohit Sharma.

The Recurring Theme of Dipping Stocks

Rohit’s form in red-ball cricket, ever since he became only the third Indian captain to lift a World Cup, has been – for the lack of a more mollifying term – abysmal.

There have been regurgitations of the Indian captain facing fewer deliveries than Scott Boland – the Australian number 11 – despite having batted on two more occasions. Or, Rohit scoring fewer runs than Akash Deep. Or, perhaps the most damning of them all, Rohit scoring as many runs as Jasprit Bumrah has scalped wickets in this series.

Keeping the entire discourse on squad balance aside, Rohit’s numbers do not justify selection. That, he has been a successful captain, might have aided his cause, had his troubles not been a recurring theme.

He scored 619 Test runs in 2024, at an average of 24.76 – his worst in a calendar year. An even more incriminating statistic, however, is 455 of those runs came in the first six Tests of the year, wherein he struck a couple of centuries against England.

Rohit Sharma’s worst Test average in a calendar year:

• 2024 – 24.76

• 2015 – 25.08

• 2018 – 26.29

• 2014 – 26.33

• 2022 – 30.00

The chinks in Rohit’s armour were evident during the Bangladesh tour in September, where Rohit scored 42 runs in two Tests. Albeit, the overarching outcome of the series – a comprehensive whitewash – could conceal all frailties.

Against New Zealand, though, there were no papers to cover the cracks, for India suffered their maiden whitewash in a three-match home Test series. Rohit scored 91 runs in that series at an average of merely 15.17, accumulating only 7.04% of the team’s total runs.

In the six matches where he has played as an opener since April 2024, Rohit’s balls per dismissal figure also fares worst among those who have played at least ten innings as an opener during this period.

Worst balls per dismissal figure among openers since April 2024 (minimum 10 innings):

• Rohit Sharma – 18.5

• Zak Crawley – 24.93

• Zakir Hasan – 31.67

Since the World Cup triumph in June, Rohit has played eight Tests, scoring merely 164 runs at an average of 10.9. 145 of those runs came as an opener, which also is the second-lowest return among batters who have played a minimum of five Tests, ahead of only Bangladesh’s Zakir Hasan.

Lowest runs scored as an opener in Tests since April 2024 (Minimum 5 Tests):

• Zakir Hasan – 129 runs in 5 matches

• Rohit Sharma – 145 runs in 6 matches

• Abdullah Shafique – 174 runs in 5 matches

• Dimuth Karunaratne – 266 runs in 7 matches

• Zak Crawley – 288 runs in 9 matches

Moreover, Rohit’s tally of 31 runs in three Tests marks the worst return by an Indian captain during a Down Under tour.

Fewest runs scored by an Indian captain in an away Test series vs Australia (minimum 3 matches as captain):

• Rohit Sharma – 31 (2024-25)

• Bishan Singh Bedi – 68 (1977-78)

• Sunil Gavaskar – 118 (1981)

• Kapil Dev – 135 (1985-86)

• Lala Amarnath – 140 (1947-48)

In terms of average, too, Rohit’s figure of 6.20 is the worst by a touring captain in Australia, among those who played at least three matches as the leader.

Worst batting average as a captain in an away Test series vs Australia (minimum 3 matches):

• Rohit Sharma – 6.20 (2024-25)

• Courtney Walsh – 7.75 (1996-97)

• Arthur Gilligan – 9.14 (1924-25)

• Dean Elgar – 9.33 (2022-23)

• Ivo Bligh – 10.33 (1882-83)

It Wasn’t Always This Way

For the empathy-inclined, Rohit Sharma’s dipping stocks are not entirely a fault of his own, but interlinked with how he had to remodel his white-ball game – the very style which has earned India accolades in the shorter versions of the game.

In the first six years of his Test career, Rohit played predominantly as a middle-order batter, barring a few rare opportunities as the number three. In 2019, however, he could barely do anything wrong. Rohit struck four centuries in the ODI World Cup, on the back of 11 ODI centuries in 2018. That was still not enough to justify a place in the Test set-up, but KL Rahul’s lukewarm offerings in West Indies presented Rohit with an opportunity to open for India in Test cricket.

Already 32 at the time, Rohit made the most of the occasion by scoring 529 runs in the three-match series against South Africa, which also happened to be the highest by any cricketer in an India-South Africa bilateral Test series.

His form rolled into 2021, where Rohit scored 906 runs in 11 matches – the most by any Indian cricketer. His nearest competitor, Rishabh Pant, was 148 runs shy at 748.

Most Test runs by Indians since Rohit’s debut as an opener till the end of 2021:

• Rohit Sharma – 1462

• Cheteshwar Pujara – 1119

• Virat Kohli – 1105

• Ajinkya Rahane – 1104

• Mayank Agarwal – 1083

What Changed?

A year later, however, Rohit had to transform his batting technicalities for the greater good. As ‘intent’ became the buzzword around the Indian team, Rohit opted for a technique tailored to cater for the needs of the aggressive game.

The Indian captain loaded more weight onto his back foot, had a higher backlift starting from the first slip, opened his hips, and prepared to take the bowler on from the first ball, without his front foot moving across the crease. With the field restrictions and circumstantial advantages of the shorter format, the minute tweaks worked wonders for Rohit in white-ball cricket. His ODI strike rate soared to 114.22 in 2022, from 86.54 in 2021.

In Test cricket, though, he found himself out of ideas against the deliveries which moved away from him, exposing his off-stump.

Cue his dismissal in the second innings of the Adelaide Test. Pat Cummins’ delivery angled away ever so slightly, beating Rohit’s outside edge and hitting the top of the off-stump.

Lacking confidence in his defence, the obvious alternative has been to attack – an efficacious strategy in white-ball cricket, but one that exposes vulnerabilities in Test cricket. Across both innings in the Melbourne Test, Rohit fell prey to an attacking shot – first a pull where he could not judge the length of Cummins’ delivery, and then, a flick which caught a thick outside edge. Teams have now cracked the Rohit Sharma kryptonite – good length, outside off, angling away, and more often than not, a wicket will follow.

Add to that, the deceleration of reflexes which is pretty customary for a 37-year-old.

The Bigger Picture

Having addressed technicalities, Rohit’s presence in the playing XI also jeopardizes the impending transition, considering the players who had to sit out.

Shubman Gill scored 59 runs in Brisbane, where the entire team scored 335 runs across the two innings. Moreover, he is India’s second-highest Test scorer in 2024, with 886 runs at an average of 43.30. KL Rahul had an average of 35.21 in 2024, and we have not discussed Sarfaraz Khan, who lost his place after only a couple of poor performances, despite a 150 against New Zealand, and Abhimanyu Easwaran, who has been waiting in the wings for what seems to be an eternity.

Whether Rohit will make technical alterations yet again at 37, now that he has retired from T20I cricket, is a question for the future. For now, at least, Gautam Gambhir, and Rohit himself, have made the right call.