Rohit: Poor form, running out time

The India skipper desperately needs to get big scores with the ICC Champions Trophy next up

- Somshuvra Laha

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.