On the eve of the Boxing Day Test vs Australia, India captain Rohit Sharma rolled a desperate dice when he decided to return to top of the order. In the Tests preceding that fixture, Rohit, who joined the side from the second Test due to birth of his second child, was batting in the middle order to not upset the successful combination of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal.While that move was in the team’s interest, it didn’t work the way Rohit, the batter, would have liked.Single digit outings in Adelaide and early departure in his only innings of the Brisbane Test meant Rohit was done with the middle-order gig. He made up his mind, had that tough talk with Shubman Gill, who had to miss out on a Playing XI spot due to the shuffle, and was back as an opener in front of a capacity crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. India’s XI changed, batting order changed but Rohit’s returns remained the same. Two more single digits, India lost the Test and pressure on the Indian captain peaked.The build-up to the Border Gavaskar Trophy wasn’t ideal as India were whitewashed by New Zealand at home and the MCG result, coupled with Rohit’s desperation which resulted in a young batter losing his Playing XI spot, didn’t sit well with the men who matter. The mid-series retirement of R Ashwin further irked them as the Indian cricket team didn’t look in good space.
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“This is shocking to say the least. First R Ashwin’s mid-series retirement then what happened with Shubman Gill in Melbourne. You are letting the narrative slip out of your hands. About time someone makes that tough phone call,” a senior Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official told the TimesofIndia.com last year.Clearly Rohit was not fitting in the Playing XI and his mid-series movement in the batting order didn’t help the stability of the side. The inevitable happened after the New Year as he wasn’t in the Playing XI for the SCG Test. The Indian camp and Rohit maintained he had “opted out” but the hard fact of him not deserving a place in that XI wasn’t spelled out.In a mid-match interview with the broadcaster, Rohit put speculation on his Test future to rest but the writing was on the wall. Rohit had played his last Test for India at the MCG because a new World Test Championship cycle was going to start with the England tour and clearly Rohit wasn’t expected to last the distance.
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The runs in the longest format had dried up and the baggage of captaincy, especially when the results didn’t go the team’s way, was further weighing him down. Yes, there was success in white-ball but the selectors were in no mood to confuse formats. The idea was clear – have a captain they expect to last the series and majority of the WTC cycle. Chaos was the last thing they wanted in England and both the BCCI top brass and selectors had an eye on the future.There was a sense of leadership vacuum, which came up for discussions too, but the thinktank seemed ready to groom a young leader rather than having any stop-gap fixes for the new WTC cycle.Rohit, the batter. And Rohit, the captain. Both didn’t fit in the scheme of things.
