The Indian opener, Rohit Sharma is a proven match-winner in limited overs cricket, but his performances in the longest format are well below-par, even when he is half-way through his career. By his own admission, Rohit now doesn’t worry about his Test selection and just wants to enjoy the remainder of his playing career.
Talking about his stop-start Test career, Sharma, said, “There’s a limited time you have as a player and I have finished almost half of it. T. I am going forward with the theory of ‘whatever time I have to make it count’.”
Despite possessing an impressive record with the white ball, Rohit has failed to justify his talent with the red cherry, scoring just 1479 runs an average of 39.97 from the 25 Tests he has played for India. Due to his inconsistent performances with the bat in South Africa, Rohit wasn’t included in the one-off Test against Afghanistan in Bengaluru starting June 14.
But Sharma doesn’t have any complaint and said he is now at such a stage of his career where he can’t think about selection. He elaborated, “For me, I am not at a stage to worry about whether I’ll be picked or not. I need to enjoy my game. The first five-six years of my career, it was all about “oh, will I be picked? Will I play”! Now it’s all about enjoying the game. I got into the national team when I was 20 and I made my Test debut when I was 26. I had an opportunity to make my debut in 2010 but I missed that (due to an injury). After that, it made me realize that the more you want, your attitude changes. I have realized there’s time for everything.”
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He further added, “There has to be time and a slot available for it. The seniors – Sachin, Rahul, VVS, and Sourav – were all playing then so we had to wait. After a point, I realized there’s no point thinking about it (selection). No point in thinking about what the selectors are doing and all.”
Rohit’s performance in IPL 2018 was against disappointing as he even failed to take his team to the playoffs. Talking about the same he said, “A disappointing campaign without a doubt. I said many times during the season that this team was much, much better. I think we had a much better squad than most of the other teams who went on to qualify also. And personally, for me, it was not a great season. I expected a lot from the standards I have set for myself and the kind of performance I have had lately. I gave myself full chance to go out there and do what I could.”
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When asked about if he is a white-ball specialist, Rohit replied, “By no means. As a child, all I dreamt of was to play Test cricket and that dream will never be over. Nobody can take away my game or what I think about the gam. Selectors can do what is best in their control, players will do what is in their control. It’s important to keep focus. When I started playing cricket, there was no white ball cricket. We used to play in school, in age-group cricket with the red ball. The white ball came much later. As a child, you only saw red ball cricket.”
