How cricketers reacted to Dhoni's exclusion from T20I squad

Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma

There is a very well-known story about Rohit Sharma's cricket career in the maidaans of Mumbai. It is said his childhood coach, having spotted the sheer elegance of his bat swing, and his breathtakingly wide array of cuts and pulls, used to place a one-rupee coin at the top of his stumps, and ask his bowlers to dislodge the coin. That anyone hardly did is another matter altogether, but the parallel that this draws with Sachin Tendulkar and Ramakant Achrekar outlines the Tendulkar-esque talent he boasts of, epitomized by the ostensible laziness with which he lofts the leather.

His career underwent a metamorphosis, with all meaning of the word, after MS Dhoni decided to promote him up the order to open the batting. Gee, that would be euphemistic in itself, for Rohit Sharma, today, has in all his right, turned into a wight-ball sensation, a batting colossus that keeps churning out double centuries with stoical equanimity as if he were eating an ice cream.

For all the Midas touches that MS Dhoni has given to his career, it was on the eve of the first T20I versus West Indies, that Sharma came into the party, and hummed the Dhoni-shall-be-missed hymn.

"Dhoni has been such a massive player for us, over the years . His experience in the middle will be missed but again Rishabh (Pant) and Dinesh (Karthik) have great opportunity to come and perform and show what they're capable of as well. It gives them an opportunity to express themselves.", Rohit said to the media personnel.

"We cannot go into the World Cup with limited resources. We need to have options. This gives you a great platform to try and test these guys."

A litmus-test (Oh Windies, so we hope), if there isn't a scintilla of falsity in Rohit's remarks, is obviously the priority, as he pulls up his socks and buckles his belt for his third assignment as T20I national captain.