Rohit Sharma: The End of an Era Soon?

Rohit Sharma is among the most aggressive yet elegant, correct and stylish, not to be called pinch hitters, openers of Indian Cricket, starting with Farokh Engineer (mostly in Test Cricket those days except for the World Cup-1975), on to Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Ajay Jadeja, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and concluding with Yashasvi Jaiswal. They’ve always been a delight to watch and the early fall of their wickets cast a doom for cricket fans invariably, often for the team too. Rohit Sharma has excelled in the limited overs format (making his debut in T20I and in ODI in 2007) with quite a few world records for most runs in T20I, most sixes in international cricket, most double hundreds (3) in ODIs (One Day Internationals), most centuries (7) in Cricket World Cups, most centuries (5) in a single World Cup for which he won the ICC Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year in 2019 and the individual record of the highest 264 runs in ODI cricket. A player of such immense talent and potential could not be ignored for Test Cricket for long, and Rohit made his Test debut in 2013 under a trusting MS Dhoni and became a deserving all-format cricketer. But for his frequent loss of form at various junctures, like in around 2009-10 due to which he wasn’t selected for the historic World Cup-2011, the Hitman, as he was fondly called in the white-ball cricket, would’ve gone on to break many more world records.

As keen followers of cricket, including this writer, we cannot keep our eyes off from Rohit once he comes in to bat and on that particular day when he gets going, his antics with the bat get fascinating and too good to believe. His innings are pure entertainment in cricket batting display, not just raw hitting, but sound copybook style attacking aggressive batting. I often tended to compare his delightful batting with Virender Sehwag and got my full vindication in what Sunil Gavaskar said about the Hitman:

The standout performer in both the limited overs series and the T20 series has been Rohit Sharma. Like Virender Sehwag before him, he is unstoppable once he gets going and like Viru he has an appetite for big hundreds. When Viru used to get out looking to hit another delivery out of the park, there used to be consternation around the ground, just like it is when Rohit gets out to a seemingly casual shot. If Rohit can turn his white ball exploits into red ball cricket, he will be the most destructive batsman in the world after Viv Richards and Virender Sehwag.

No doubt Rohit Sharma was appointed a regular all-format captain of Team India in 2022, following Virat Kohli. During his short tenure till 2025, Rohit has the highest success rate percentage of 75 among Indian Captains, followed by Kohli with 68% and MS Dhoni with 55%. His tenure includes the triumphs of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup-2024, the ICC Champions Trophy-2025, the Asia Cup-2018, the Asia Cup-2023, and he was also a member of the team winning the ICC Champions Trophy-2013. He also had a stint as Team Captain in the away Test Series against South Africa in 2018 due to Virat Kohli being rested and under his leadership India won the Series 2-1. He led Team India from the front in the ICC Men’s World Cup-2023 with scintillating individual scores thus contributing for his team remain unbeaten till the Final; and unfortunately, he narrowly missed scripting his most deserving achievement. Various commentators made various observations about that fateful Final against Australia that includes pitch errors, a few players’ motivation factors and India’s batting order decisions.

There’s been lot of joy among the Indian cricket fans with the announcement of Team India squads for the upcoming India Tour of Australia, for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been selected for the ODI squad. It’s almost like the last opportunity to watch those two legendary international batsmen in action. With Gautam Gambhir, the Indian Head Coach, nurturing and already building a young Team India of the future, it’s highly unlikely these two superstars would be retained for the World Cup-2027 as both of them will be turning forty years of age that time around.

As we’ve mentioned earlier Rohit’s frequent loss of form affected his otherwise stupendous cricket career with roadblocks. His disastrous batting form in the home Test Series against New   Zealand in 2024 in which India got whitewashed 0-3, a rare drabbing in decades, and the 1-3 loss in the away Test Series the same year against Australia proved definitive as far as his Test career was concerned. Meanwhile, Head Coach Gautam Gambhir has launched himself fully in the act of ending the so-called ‘superstar cult’ within Indian Cricket and providing avenues for young cricketers who have done excellently in the IPL and in domestic cricket. With Chief Selector Ajit Agarkar giving full backing the two greats were dropped from the Test cricket team against England this year. Anticipating the move Rohit Sharma as well as Virat Kohli announced their retirement from Test Cricket. They’d already retired from the T20I format following India’s triumph in the T20 World Cup-2024. The current churning in building a young team is very much similar to Captain Cool MS Dhoni’s efforts to ease out the greats of Ganguly, Dravid and Tendulkar. Perhaps the same thinking has been applied to another aggressive batsman Surya Kumar Yadav (fondly SKY) who’s already turned 35 keeping him as captain of the T20 national team as long as he succeeds in winning and not considering him for either the ODI or the Test teams. Well, inevitably enough, the process of elimination and elevation seems to be in full swing for the vision of the World Cup-2027. With Gambhir’s apparent adoration for Shubman Gill, the later seems to be the obvious choice for the all-format Captain for Team India in the near future, closely following which ‘vision’ he has been named the India captain for the ODI squad against Australia replacing Rohit Sharma.  

But of course, cricket fans are most likely set to go on watching these two greats in action in the future versions of the IPL. Rohit also has one of the most successful cricket captain careers as Captain of the Mumbai Indians IPL Franchise winning five Champion titles during 2013-2020, equalling the record of the MS Dhoni for the Chennai Super Kings Franchise. In the last IPL Virat Kohli had finally asserted himself for his Royal Challengers, Bangalore Franchise helping it win its maiden Champion title.

Maybe all is not over yet for Rohit and Virat. We’re set to watch them in the ODI Series against Australia that starts 19^th October, 2025. It’s their performances there that’d matter the most. If they are able to reproduce a streak of their masterclass vintage innings yet again, they might as well get back into contention for the next World Cup in spite of the Vision or at least for more of the ODI series to unfold in the near future!