Rohit Sharma who is the limited-overs cricket winning phenomenon of India, recently said that he had stopped thinking much about the batting techniques in Test cricket. Rohit is one of the best and aggressive openers in the ODI and T20I formats. He had been named as “HITMAN” for the big competitive knocks that he plays in most of the games.
However, the ODI run-making machine had struggling record in Test career, who made his longest-format debut in 2013. While he went from being temporary to permanent in the 50-overs game, he could not achieve the same in Test cricket. His dodgy form in the long-format game put him behind Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara. Denoting his performance in Test in his yesteryears, Rohit said that he wasted a lot of time thinking about his techniques in Test, back then, and this halted him to enjoy the game.
“Honestly speaking, I stopped thinking about Test matches long time back,” Rohit told PTI. “Earlier, I was thinking too much about success in Tests. I would go overboard as to why is this happening, why am I playing that shot. After each Test innings, I would go to our video analyst, sit, watch and then confuse (clutter) my brain further. That wasn’t actually the right thing that I was doing,” he recalled.
Rohit: Thinking too much about technique was not allowing me to enjoy the game
Nevertheless, Rohit did shut the critics when he re-entered the Test cricket arena against the visiting Proteas side in October 2019. Coming to bat as a Test opener for the first time, he scored 176 runs, and in the next game, he scored 127 runs.
“Thinking too much about technique was not allowing me to enjoy the game. All that was there in my mind was ‘Oh I need to do well in Test cricket’. So, before the 2018-19 Australia series, I told myself ‘Boss whatever has to happen will happen and I am not going to think about technique’.”
While India was already the declared winner of the series, Rohit’s maiden double-century knock urged India to whitewash the visitors by 3-0. Rohit expressed what was going on his mind before he got on the ground to play the impeccable innings of his Test career.
“If you talk about opening in the SA series, from people’s perspective, it was my last chance but I am a sportsman and I can’t think like that. If I thought it was my last chance then I wouldn’t have scored runs with that mindset. You can’t allow negative thoughts to creep in when you are playing such a high profile sport,” he said.
“I know that I am no longer 22 or 23 years old that I will keep getting opportunities in Test matches and can take my place for granted. I know that every time I go out there, I have to put a high price tag on my wicket. I am blessed to get an opportunity that many are waiting for. So, why should I regret worry or think about so many things?”
In the meantime, India is having two home assignments in January after which the Men in Blue will be heading to New Zealand for five-match T20I series, three-match ODI series, and a two-match Test series. And with Rohit giving an exceptional performance when Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw are out of the Test scene, due to injury and doping ban respectively, the selectors will have wide options to go for their first tours of the year.