PM [1]
Rank : Helper
Status : Super Owner
#1
"Class is permanent, form is temporary". It's high time the adage comes with a rider in cricket: ‘subject to age of the athlete and how long he/she has been largely out of form'. At a certain point in time, almost every athlete, regardless of stature and class, races against time to stay in the mix. Some manage to beat the clock, most don't.
Calling A Spade A Spade
This adage is being used by many to sum up where two of the biggest pillars of modern-day Indian cricket, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, stand currently, vis-à-vis their ODI careers. With the 2025 edition of the ICC Champions Trophy getting underway, the chorus of voices talking about these two stalwarts and what their ODI future might look like has reached a crescendo. And while many of the voices in that chorus are citing the above oft-used adage, not too many are calling the proverbial spade a spade: if Rohit and Virat don't play tournament-defining knocks to significantly try and carry the team towards the title, their ODI days will be numbered. One match into India's campaign and the two, who looked good while they were in the middle, still have a lot of work to do.
Building The Strongest Team
It's not really a secret that every national board and team management aims at building the strongest team possible with the next big tournament, more often than not a World Cup, as the target. The build-up period was usually around two and half years at one time, with a certain fixed number of matches in mind where the team combination the management thinks will work best is tried out. Things changed somewhat of course after T20s became all the rage. Now that we have a T20 World Cup every two years, that stock-taking and preparation period has shortened for the shortest format.
For ODIs though, it still remains at around a couple of years and about 20-30 games. The Champions Trophy, also dubbed the ‘mini-World Cup', is being played for the first time since 2017 and the next global ODI tournament will be the World Cup in 2027, roughly scheduled for October-November. That is over two years away. Realistically, players who are not demonstrating consistency are kept on the sidelines of long-term preparation, after being given an appropriate number of chances, as determined by the selectors and team management of the time. If Rohit and Virat don't have a good Champions Trophy, what are the chances they will still be in the reckoning for the 2027 ODI World Cup? It's not really a tough question to answer, is it?
Global Superstars
Every player wants to go out on his or her own terms, especially champion players. The last thing they want is to be pushed out. It wasn't surprising to see Rohit and Virat retire from T20is right after India won the 2024 T20 World Cup. It was the perfect time to bid adieu to the format—on the biggest of highs possible—as world champions. I believe both players might just have done the same in the ODI format, if India had won the 2023 World Cup. But when the team faltered at the final hurdle, they must have felt that this is not the ending they want for their ODI legacies. After all, this is a format that has played the biggest role in making Rohit and Virat who they are: global superstars. Rohit still holds the record for the maximum number of ODI double tons (3), while Virat holds the record for the most ODI centuries (50) and is the player who re-defined ODI chases. Both players would want to exit the format on a high. In other words, the best possible scenario right now would be that India clinches the Champions Trophy title, with both star batters playing stellar knocks.
One thing that we have seen unfold is players who are a few notches above the rest in talent and calibre use the biggest of platforms to roar back to life after being somewhat comatose. Gautam Gambhir earlier said that Rohit and Virat “have got to play a massive role” in India's Champions Trophy campaign this time. That statement might have been based on two things. One, the coach's overall faith in the latent talent and calibre of these two players. And two, just how effective Rohit and Virat have traditionally been in ICC tournaments. A quick look at the statistics tells us that in the all-time list of most runs scored in the Champions Trophy and the ODI World Cup combined, Virat sits at number two, behind only Sachin Tendulkar, with five centuries and an average of almost 64, while Rohit is at number five, behind Kumar Sangakkara, with eight centuries and averaging 58 (till after the India vs Bangladesh match at the ongoing CT). History tells us that these two batting heroes, just like most batting legends, really come good on the biggest platforms of them all. Remember the 2019 ODI World Cup? Rohit crossed the fifty-run mark six times in nine innings and notched up hundreds five times. The question is, how much of that Rohit Sharma does still exist in the mind of the man captaining the team in Dubai right now?
Personal Milestones, Team Glory
Rohit and Virat have always been team-players, not focused on personal glory or statistics. In fact, on the eve of India's first match of the tournament, Rohit said, “We (the team) will not be looking at individual milestones.” While that is true, to assume that neither player will be feeling any pressure at all to contribute big time for the team this time would also be naïve. Despite outward appearances, both players will know that as the two most senior batters in the team, they have to score, and score big.
Virat is exceptionally fit physically and mentally. Rohit is hands-down one of the best natural talents to have ever played international cricket. But is it these very characteristics that are coming in the way of them making the subtle changes they need to make to their approach, at this stage of their careers? I spoke to Mumbai cricket legend Mr. Milind Rege in January this year, less than a month before he tragically passed away at the age of 76. Mr. Rege, a former Mumbai chief selector who lived and breathed Mumbai and Indian cricket, told me that he feels that since Virat is so fit, he hasn't thought about which shots he needs to cut out of his repertoire, like Sachin Tendulkar did in the latter part of his career. He said, “The day he (Virat) realises that ‘maybe I can play a little more percentage cricket', he will start batting better.” He also added, “I wouldn't be surprised if a Champions Trophy (title) win would hasten his (Virat's) decision to quit ODI cricket also and concentrate on Test cricket.”
As far as Rohit is concerned, Mr. Rege said, “definitely Rohit will have to work on his technique.”
On Thursday, Rohit became the second-fastest batsman to reach 11,000 ODI runs. The fastest on that list is a certain Virat Kohli. Regardless of when these two legends of the game ride into the ODI sunset, let's hope they manage to do it on a big high: both for themselves and the team.