Rohit Sharma Wants Sachin Tendulkar To Bat For His Life!

Then he pretenaturally gifted (and mercurial) batsman opens up about test cricket, being a veteran before 30, marriage and everything in between.

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Rohit Sharma has only a few hours to go before he leaves for Bengaluru to attend a camp ahead of the Indian cricket team’s tour of the West Indies. What does he do? He shows up at our shoot, wraps it up in record time and rushes right off to the airport, of course. Wife Ritika Sajdeh — as competent a manager as you’ll find — does most of the talking, while Rohit smiles indulgently. She’s the exuberant one, and a perfect foil to the reticent batsman. A year-and-a-half after we featured Rohit on the cover of our World Cup special issue, he’s being shot by Colston Julian again, and the photographer isn’t the only one who thinks a lot has changed in that short span.

I ask Ritika about her husband’s newly-acquired skills in front of the camera and she grins, “That’s all everyone’s been telling me; that he’s come a long way.” That apart, Rohit’s still the guy who waits patiently while multiple hands (among which are designer friend Troy Costa, who drops by to say hello) pin and adjust his jacket between shots, or as the hairstylist appears every minute or so to tuck away a particularly stubborn flyway strand. He exudes the sort of unspoken confidence we’ve seen on our TV sets of late, watching him captain the Mumbai Indians IPL team and turning out in his country’s blue kit as one of the senior members of the squad (never mind that he’s still only 29). There’s also a smile that crops up more frequently than ever — most often when the couple shares a quiet joke in the middle of our chaotic studio. In an email interview (possibly answered mid-air en route the Caribbean islands), Rohit tells us that he’s enjoying being a captain, that umpires sometimes make him angry and that among other things, marriage has meant more board games in his life.

What would you say is your main objective, personally, on this West Indies tour?