Were he that sort, Rohit Sharma would put his feet up on his first day as a former Test cricketer and reflect on a series of what ifs. What if he hadn’t rolled his ankle on the morning of his scheduled Test debut against South Africa in Nagpur in February 2010, a development that obliquely postponed his entry into the five-day game by more than three and a half years? What if he hadn’t unleashed 177 and 111 not out in his first two Test innings, knocks that were subliminally brilliant and yet raised such unjustified expectations that he was always chasing his tail?

What if he had shown greater consistency and been treated with greater quality of opportunities in Test cricket? What if, just when he was beginning to find a second wind in 2016 when Anil Kumble was the head coach, he hadn’t picked up a terrible thigh injury? What if Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri had seen the potential in him as an opener (like Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Duncan Fletcher had done in limited-overs internationals in January 2013) and elevated him to the top of the batting tree far earlier than October 2019? What if…?

But Rohit Sharma isn’t that sort, thankfully. He’s the kind of person who has always seen — and will continue to see — the glass as half-full. He will have regrets, of course (who doesn’t?), but they will neither weigh him down nor send him into a morass of self-pity and recrimination. Rohit will concede that he could and should have had a more fulfilling Test career, but he will also tell you that he will take 4,301 runs and an average of 40.57 from 67 appearances gladly, that he is thrilled to bits that India won every one of the 12 games in which he topped 100.

Exactly a week after turning 38, Rohit called time on his red-ball career through a social media post, the preferred mode of significant announcements for several of India’s high-profile cricketers. A more street-smart individual might have put off that call to a later date, given that the talk of the town for all of Wednesday was Operation Sindoor launched by the Indian armed forces, but the Mumbaikar has seldom gone out of his way to court attention or play the PR game. He is the classic example of following his heart and once he knew that his time had come, there was no second thought, no manipulating the system, no cherry-picking a time of convenience to let his decision be known to the larger cricketing family.

Rohit’s retirement from the most demanding format of the game surely has its genesis in the developments of the last seven months. At the beginning of the international home season in September, it was almost taken for granted that India would contest the final of the World Test Championship for a third consecutive cycle. Five Tests were pencilled in in their own backyard – two against Bangladesh, followed by three against New Zealand, who hadn’t won a Test in India for 35 years. Barring the unforeseen, five wins out of five would ease India’s path to the title round heading into a five-match showdown Down Under for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

When Bangladesh were swatted aside 2-0, those expectations were firmed up even more. In Chennai in the first Test, pushed into a corner at 144 for six, India found batting heroes in spinning all-rounders R. Ashwin
and Ravindra Jadeja. When rain and inadequate drainage/covers lopped off a large chunk of play in the second Test in Kanpur, Rohit’s India turned a meandering contest into a spectacular triumph, scoring at more than eight runs an over in their first innings to make up for lost time and pull off a special victory.

New Zealand came to India with a sense of awe, if not dread. Their spin consultant, Rangana Herath, acknowledged a month and a half after the most sensational coup that the Kiwis’ first aim was to avoid a hammering, see if they could compete on even terms, maybe sneak in one victory, at best. But India threw them a lifeline in the first Test in Bengaluru when, despite the loss of the first day to rain and the pitch sweating under the covers for four days in a row, they chose to bat and were rolled over for 46, comfortably their lowest total in a home Test.

Bold, unprecedented

At the end of that day’s play, which New Zealand finished on 180 for three, Rohit put in an appearance at the press conference. It was unusual, to say the least. Rohit isn’t a huge fan of press dos, though he has never shied away from that responsibility which comes with the tag of the team’s captain. But this evening, he volunteered to talk to the media and didn’t mince words. He didn’t hide behind platitudes and excuses, he didn’t hem and haw. Instead, he took full and complete responsibility for the call to bat first. He admitted to an error in judgement but was quick to point out that his team should not be defined by the three hours of madness at the Chinnaswamy. It was bold, unprecedented in the annals of Indian cricket where captains have basked in glory and allowed others to carry the can in times of strife.

As if to reiterate the wisdom of his words, Rohit slammed 52 off 63 in India’s second innings, which rocketed to 408 for three in 84 overs. Despite their commanding first-innings lead of 356, New Zealand were running scared – and no, we are not exaggerating – but the second new ball triggered an extraordinary collapse as India lost their last seven wickets for 54, and eventually the Test by eight wickets. That was the start of a nightmarish run for Rohit and his team.

That second-innings 52 was Rohit’s only half-century of the season, in eight Tests. The Bengaluru loss was the first of six, also in eight Tests, for the Indians, who thus emphatically played themselves out of the race for a spot in the WTC final. New Zealand’s 3-0 sweep was without parallel; Rohit became the first captain to lose all matches in a series of more than two Tests at home as India conceded a series in their own turf for the first time since December 2012.

Things went from bad to worse in Australia. In Rohit’s paternity-leave absence in Perth, Jasprit Bumrah led his side to a terrific victory in the first Test at the Optus, helped by a 201-run opening stand in the second innings between Rohit’s long-standing partner Yashasvi Jaiswal and K.L. Rahul, the yo-yoing hero. When Rohit joined the team for the day-night Test in Adelaide, he said the choice was clear – that Jaiswal and Rahul would continue to open, that he would bat in the middle order even though it wasn’t best for him but it was what was best for the team.

Rohit hadn’t not opened since October 2019, courted failure in Adelaide and then Brisbane, returned to open in Melbourne with little success and sat himself out of the final Test in Sydney – again, something that had never happened in Indian cricket.

This string of individual and collective failures, allied with advancing years, greater family commitments (he now has two young kids, the younger one less than six months old) and the realisation that it was time for the team to look onward and upward must have influenced his decision to retire even though a five-Test tour of England is exactly six weeks away. It was in England, in 2021, that Rohit’s transformation as an ‘orthodox’ Test opener was complete.

In India, he had filled his boots against the brand-new red ball, batting with freedom and authority while making twin hundreds (in Visakhapatnam against South Africa) in his first Test at the top of the order and following it up with a double two Tests later. But in England, he couldn’t afford to hit through the line, not with the Dukes behaving crazily (somehow, in these days of Bazball, it doesn’t anymore) and England possessing a quality pace attack.

In a pre-series camp in Durham, Rohit spent hours perfecting the art of leaving the ball outside off, cocking his wrists so that his hands didn’t get ahead of him to the extent that the wrists started to hurt badly. He was determined to prove to himself that he might have been an accidental Test opener, but that he could be an accomplished one too. His adaptability manifested itself in numerous punchy opening salvos alongside Rahul and he brought up his maiden overseas ton at The Oval – with a six, no less – to reveal a steel to his character and a resolve and discipline that, unfairly, he had seldom been credited with.

India’s all-format captain

Less than two and a half years after his resurrection in the five-day game as an opener, Rohit became India’s all-format captain. At the time of his retirement, he is India’s second most successful Test leader, with 12 wins from 24 outings (only Kohli boasts a better win percentage) but more than that, Rohit should take pride in having overseen a tricky transitional phase alongside head coach Rahul Dravid, a period during which India severed links with seasoned campaigners Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane with an eye on the future.

Rohit’s remarkable transition from misfiring/underachieving middle-order Test batter to a voracious run-gatherer (until the last few months) in the garb of an opener is matched for impact only by his tactical and leadership skills, and the unique ability to instil belief, confidence and a sense of belonging in his younger colleagues, of whom several cut their teeth in Test cricket in the last year and a half. On their own, his Test numbers might appear only passable, but as they say, statistics tell only half the tale. At best.