Kohli to return in 2nd ODI after knee niggle

Delirium swept across Barabati Stadium at the sight of Virat Kohli, stepping on to the turf and heading straight to the nets for an extended session.

- Somshuvra Laha

CUTTACK: Rohit Sharma is struggling. There are no two ways about it. Nearly a year without a hundred in any format, often falling to his favourite pull shot, feet and head not always in sync with hands, rarely has he looked this out of sorts.

These things happen when you aim to be a high-functioning opener. But that wait has now consumed Test tours against New Zealand, Australia, a Ranji Trophy match and a one-dayer against England.

An inscrutable figure that Rohit is, it's impossible to perceive how exactly he must have felt sitting out the Sydney Test while allaying retirement rumours, only for that talk to resurface in ODIs, a format he virtually owns with three double centuries.

The lack of runs is real though. The early dismissals too. Worse is how he's getting beaten left and right, to pace, bounce or the lack of it, mostly on Indian pitches that he usually reads like the back of his hand. And so valid are concerns that it may not only be about recent form anymore, that the numbers are in terminal decline, something even his former teammate believes has to snap soon.

"If you look at it from Rohit's point of view, then obviously, it is frustrating for him," R Ashwin has said on his YouTube channel. "He needs to concentrate on the series. He thinks that he has done well in the format and he'd like to continue that. But people will ask questions. The ones who are watching will obviously ask. It's a catch-22 situation. You can't stop these questions. When will they stop? When he performs," he said.

Easier said than done, Rohit must be realise by now. The 2023 ODI World Cup marked a shift in approach where he didn't try to hang around so it's unlikely he will reconsider it in what could be the final leg of his white-ball career.