Rohit Sharma has mixed caution with aggression to add a different dimension to his batting and is happy with the results, even if it keeps him away from scoring a big century. By the end of World Cup 2019, Rohit had scored 27 ODI centuries but has only managed to add three more centuries in the last four years. Rohit believes this has happened because he has started taking risks while batting.
“I wanted to take more risks, so my number of centuries is a little different now,” Rohit told PTI in an ‘exclusive’ interview. decreased slightly. That’s what our batting coach (Vikram Rathore) used to tell me.” Rohit is the only player to have scored three double centuries (209 against Australia in 2013, 264 against Sri Lanka in 2014, an unbeaten 208 against Sri Lanka in 2017). His last innings of more than 150 runs came in 2019. West Indies came up in Visakhapatnam.
Rohit said that in the meantime he had to compromise somewhere. He said, “My career strike rate was around 90 (89.97) but in the last two years if you look at my scores and strike rate, it is closer to 105-110. So somewhere you have to compromise. It is not possible that the average is 55 and the strike rate is 110. My normal batting is still in me but I wanted to try something else. I am also happy with the result.” Instead, he informed the team management about the change in his batting.
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He said, “Everybody wants to score 150 or 170 runs by batting for a long time. I still want to do it but it’s always good to do something you’ve never done. It only increases your batting ability. You won’t know about it until you do.” Rohit said, “I know if I play risky shots I will get out many times but I didn’t mind. I told the team management that this is how I want to play.
The kind of track the Indian team plays at home is not conducive to batsmen and the Indian skipper has been one of the most consistent Test batsmen in recent times. He said, “Look at my recent Test innings in India. I can tell you that batting in India now is more difficult than batting abroad, especially the last two-three years have been challenging. That’s why we haven’t talked about the runs and averages of the batting unit. We all agreed that we wanted to play on challenging pitches. I don’t want to worry about how our average will be.
“That’s what I think but different players have different thought processes and I don’t want to change that. I will play on pitches that will benefit our bowlers. Rohit has been captaining Mumbai Indians for 11 years and leading the national team for almost two years. So does a captain have tenure? To this he replied, “There is no such thing as tenure.” “You get a responsibility, you get results and the most important thing is that you are happy with the responsibility you have been given. This is a more important question than tenure.