Dig in aggressively: what’s with Rohit upping the ante
The Indian opener has transitioned into a selfless top-order aggressor despite his age and deserves applause for it.
When age was supposed to create a stranglehold on his reflexes, Rohit Sharma has embarked upon a remarkable transition with his limited-overs batting. From an anchor who controlled the innings and kept his attacking instincts in check for the larger good, Rohit has turned into a full-blown aggressor, aged 36, who is going after the bowling from the word go and exploding and imposing himself on opposition attacks.
56 international batters have struck more ODI runs than Rohit Sharma’s 807 at 44.83 since 2021; only one has a better strike-rate than his 105.62. 14 players have made more runs in the first powerplay in the given timeframe, none have a strike-rate close to that of Rohit’s 100.60. One would assume this transformation would’ve coincided with a rise in early dismissals, but no, he is averaging a mighty 55.44 against the new ball for last 2.5 years.
One is correlated and consequent of the other: Rohit upping the ante has applied greater pressure on fresh bowlers hoping to settle on a radar and therefore opened more ways to score while dampening their wicket-taking routes. But this is still an astonishing change from a player Rohit used to be in his prime years. While his fortunes improved drastically after being asked to open in 2013 as the two-ball era began, the elegant right-hander took a couple of more years to expand his wings and truly establish himself in the pantheon of ODI greats, with the 2019 World Cup being a career highlight.
From the start of 2016 until the end of 2020, Rohit was the second highest run-getter of the world in the 50-over format and maintained an excellent overall average to strike-rate ratio. Only the greater Virat Kohli scored more One-Day runs than his 4,598; while carrying a better average than his 64.97 and retaining a strike-rate higher than his 95.44 in the list of top batters for the period. Rohit smashed more centuries than even Kohli, who was a run-machine at that point, while belting a jaw-dropping 146 sixes at the crease.
Any top-order aggressor worth his salt would be proud of a strike-rate surpassing 95 after 80 innings over a long phase. But here’s a thing: Rohit wasn’t a designated aggressor in that period; he was an anchor with the ability to explode later. His strike-rate was the result of a gradual progression and build-up towards the end-overs phase, not a number recorded through domination and destruction from the beginning.
Rohit went at a strike-rate of just 74.81 in the first powerplay at his peak. Despite swing almost going extinct from the white-ball game at the time, he chose to pull down gears and bat for the long haul. Rohit and Shikhar Dhawan were often criticised for batting slowly at the start when you had England’s Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow absolutely smashing the hell out of opposition new-ball bowlers. Both of them would gradually raise the intention cushion and run-scoring as the innings progressed.
Rohit’s 11–40 overs strike-rate used to witness a massive jump to 103.77 and a further boom to jaw-dropping levels at the death, where he would go on a six-hitting spree and bat with a strike-rate of 192.07. He played 67.4% dot balls in the first powerplay, which would diminish to 42.7% in the middle-overs and then reduce to 24.4% dot balls in the end-overs stage. As great an accelerator Rohit was, this is a pattern and numbers that would mark him as a dependable anchor.
Today, he is picking up steam from the start; there is a dip in the number of dot balls faced with an evident rise in the number of boundaries struck per phase, particularly at the start, and sharp decline in frequency of long vigils at the crease. Since 2021, Rohit has faced a lower 63.3% dot balls in the first powerplay while scoring a whopping 388 of his 499 runs in fours and sixes. Only 12 of his 20 innings have entered the middle phase and he has batted just once at the death in ODIs. This is not the anchor he used to be, but the most willing and selfless attacker at the top of the order.
Back in the day, Rohit’s progression at the crease would involve an unwavering attempt into settling in at the cost of tempo before gaining control with more time spent in and breaking shackles to ultimately enforcing his strong footing. That would explain his impressive consistency for the 11–40 and 41–50 phases at his peak while boosting his rate of scoring; a player of seldom matched class and pedigree, Rohit’s average for the two phases stood at 101.2 and 52.5 respectively in the 2016–20 phase.
Given Rohit’s range and the number of hundreds and double centuries he would produce at his peak, traditionalists have tended to diss on his transformation and failed to acknowledge it deeply. Commentators have been pointing out how Rohit has added only one hundred to his kitty in the past three years; how they would prefer him playing less strokes at the top for longer stints at the crease and why he must return to means with the bat even as the team continues to benefit of and cherish the overall pros and deeper influence and impact of Rohit Sharma 2.0!!
The commentary of this sport maybe stuck to old times, but Rohit and the Indian team have been openminded about their strengths, and weaknesses, and tactical evolution into a more resourceful and robust side over time. Both, Rohit Sharma of the prime and the current times, is a byproduct of the level of resources the Indian team operates with. Back in the day, when they didn’t have a settled middle-order, it was almost mandatory for Rohit and India’s esteemed top-order to prolong their stays in the middle. It didn’t help that the batting ended at No.7 with Hardik Pandya, especially in the days when their two wristspinners, who couldn’t bat, started running through opposition line-ups.
In that era, India would struggle to fit in but be desperate to fit in MS Dhoni in their middle-order despite his declining game versus spin and equally brittle and dented end-overs powerhitting versus pace. India could neither fit him at 4–5 nor 6–7 without worsening their run-rate and derailing their progress. Dhoni being shuffled around at the higher end of the middle-order to the lower with modest dividends indirectly created instability and irregularity of batting opportunities for the 2019 World Cup hopefuls.
India trialled a varied range of No.4s, 12 in total, going from anchors in the mould of Ajinkya Rahane, Ambati Rayudu, Shreyas Iyer to counterattackers in the league of Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya during bilateral series without ever settling on anyone. It says a lot that their eventual middle-order for the semifinal defeat to New Zealand featured two players who weren’t even part of the reckoning originally: Rishabh Pant and Dinesh Karthik.
The Dhoni obsession and a think-tank not willing to put him through scrutiny, created a chicken-and-egg issue for the Indian team: their big-name top-order faced a heavy portion of the balls available to try and create a sense of stability down the pipeline and provide shield for their unsettled middle-order to play more freely. But them playing the major part of the innings at their end also denied the same middle-order men opportunities and time to bed in, take control and grow into rounded and established players. While the largely underappreciated Kedar Jadhav succeeded despite these circumstances and secured his spot, the rest failed to keep their nose above waters.
From 2016 till the 2019 World Cup, in matches featuring the great trio of Rohit, Kohli and Dhawan, they played out an average worth of 177.70 balls, nearly 30 overs, at their end collectively, leaving the rest minimal time to get in before being forced to explode. Dhoni played almost 36 balls per knock off the remainder of the innings with a strike-rate of 83.79, creating greater troubles for the unsettled rest. Rohit played out 64 deliveries per knock in these matches, where Jadhav could play less than four overs. That was by design. If Rohit pushed the gears early, he risked putting the likes of Jadhav in the firing line without them being accustomed to premature entry points; if he kept delaying the risks, Jadhav basically had no option but go hell for leather with insufficient support at Dhoni’s end.
Life changed and cricketing sense prevailed post the 2019 World Cup as India gave Shreyas Iyer his due run at No.4 and surprisingly asked KL Rahul to play an aggressor’s role at No.5 not long after, which they both went on to nail. Injuries and the ascent of Rahul Dravid as coach and his preference of a left-hander in the middle meant Rishabh Pant was given trust and backing in an spin assaulter’s role before his accident, helping India counter multiple match-ups.
Since 2020, Pant (avg 43.25; SR 107.45), Rahul (avg 47.69; SR 91.72) and Iyer (avg 44.69; SR 93.89) have formed one of the world’s mightest set of first line middle-order options in ODIs and given India their strongest No.4 and No.5 options since the 2011 World Cup. Opportunities in alternate squads has helped India develop promising backups, too, in the form of Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav and even Ishan Kishan, who maybe best placed opening the innings, but has played some real gems in the make-shift capacity: in Ranchi last year and now a Pallekele classic versus Pakistan. India have also been willing to deepen their line-up by asking an Axar Patel or Shardul Thakur to bat No.8, having long ditched the two wristspinners’ idea.
Bolstering of the middle-order stocks and greater depth about the Indian batting unit in the post-Dhoni era have instilled a greater sense of freedom and intent to Rohit’s game. Elsewhere, it has given wings to young Shubman Gill at the start of his career, allowing him to play his naturally freeflowing game, which helped his case immensely in outbatting an ageing and declined Dhawan last year and cement his spot at the top. The change has gotten Kohli to play more strokes at the crease and infused a breathe of fresh air about his game.
Post 2020 in ODIs — Rohit, Kohli, Gill, Iyer, Pant, KL, Samson, Hardik have been averaging above 40 with a strike-rate in excess of 90. Multiple of them above 100. One player who was carrying a strike-rate of 81.36 in that line-up in this period was dropped. That player? Dhawan, who was once a stand-out but became a misfit when India started playing at a higher-end tempo as a batting unit, forcing the selectors to act on that heading into the 2023 World Cup.
The decision-makers would’ve found it tougher to justify a big call of such nature in a country driven by emotions and cults if they didn’t have the numbers upholding their move and a skipper leading the wind of change. A similar decision on Dhoni would’ve given India a greater chance to solidify their choices and stabilise their middle-order heading into that 2019 World Cup. But it never came.
Rohit approached his One-Day outings in T20 World Cup years to prep for the bigger goal and continued with the same tempo when 50-over cricket returned to take the centre stage. One could criticise him in Australia for execution, but not intent. If life has justice, it would see him end on a high. Rohit has only grown in respect in this period in my eyes; he may not be the fittest personality, which is a criticism I hold of him, and I don’t think he should continue in limited-overs cricket post this World Cup, but in leading an overall charge designed to maximise India’s batting prowess when historically 36-year-old’s have taken cover to shield their weaknesses or simply being sidelined as misfits, the experienced head has elevated his status from ‘great’ to a legend of the One-Day game and a true giant of Indian cricket.
