Rohit Sharma was always meant to be a top-class batsman for India since a very young age. Whoever saw him bat knew Rohit was something very special that will break many records. The elegant Mumbai batsman made instant headlines with his maiden half-century in the T20 World Cup against South Africa. But surprisingly after his initial success, Rohit’s form fell away badly.
He was omitted from the 2011 world cup team of India which was a major blow in his career. His former teammate Irfan Pathan recently stated that Rohit took a beating of not playing the world cup. He got motivated when he was dropped from the side that is when Rohit started working hard on his game.
“Lot of people are mistaken when they see a guy who has a lot of time and he is slightly more relaxed than compared to Rohit. Then you say he needs to work hard! Same things were said about Wasim Jaffer when you look at his aura when he used to run very relaxedly when he used to bat he had a lot of time and we used to think why isn’t he working hard but actually, he was working really hard.” Irfan said on the Cricket Connected Show on Star Sports.
Rohit Sharma saw growth in the form in 2012 – Irfan Pathan
However, Rohit Sharma’s career changed once he started opening in the 2013 champions trophy. Since then the Indian opener has just gone strength to strength in his career. Pathan reckons that Rohit came back with a strong mindset after 2012.
He also pointed out that from the very beginning Rohit has always put the team first ahead of his milestones. Rohit has been unstoppable in white-ball cricket now for a good 5-6 years.
“With Rohit, from outside we used to think he might need to work harder, he might need to put more application”.Whenever you talk to Rohit Sharma, he used to always talk about sensible things, he used to always talk about working hard and he used to always talk about the team first as well, that is why you see some of the results he got at the captain of the Mumbai Indians team”.
“He got the beating of not playing the world cup and then came back really hard because of a strong mindset after 2012”, said Irfan Pathan on Rohit Sharma.
The limited-overs vice-captain was the leading run-scorer in the World Cup last year in England. He scored 648 runs that included 5 centuries which is now a record for any batsman in a single edition of a world cup. The ICC awarded him with the ODI player of the year award for 2019 for his outstanding batting.
