KL Rahul will open the innings in Adelaide.
Credit: PTI Photo
Adelaide: Rohit Sharma, while disclosing that KL Rahul would be opening the innings along with Yashasvi Jaiswal in the second Test, admitted that it was not an easy decision to make personally but made sense in the larger scheme of things.
Though Rohit started his career in the middle-order in 2013 against West Indies, he found his calling in the longer format, just like in white-ball cricket, as an opener. Following his tremendous success in ODIs and T20s, the right-hander was brought back into Test fold, and repackaged as an opener.
The 37-year-old started his new journey in red-ball cricket with two centuries in the same Test against a visiting South Africa in Visakhapatnam in October 2019. Since then, the Mumbaikar, in 37 Tests, has collected 2685 runs at an average of 44.01 with nine of his 12 Test hundreds coming in the latter half and making the position his own.
For the first time since that epic return, Rohit will bat down the order with KL Rahul, who got to open because the skipper had to miss the first Test on paternity leave, continuing with the opener's job.
"We want results, we want success, and those two guys at the top, just looking at this one Test match (in Perth), they batted brilliantly," said Rohit when asked how he arrived at the decision to bat in the middle. "I was at home with my newborn in my arms and I was watching how KL batted. It was brilliant to watch, to be honest and I felt that there is no need to change that now. Maybe in the future things will be different, I don't know. (But) based on what has happened and what KL has shown outside of India, he probably deserves (to open).
"It is something that has given us success in the first Test -- to have that big partnership with Jaiswal on the other end. Probably won us the Test match. When you come here in a place like Perth and you get 500 runs it's a massive tick in the box. What I saw from the outside looked brilliant and there was no need to change anything so it was actually pretty simple for me. Personally not easy but for the team, yeah it made a lot of sense," he elaborated.
On his own experience of batting in the middle during India's warm-up match against PM's XI in Canberra, Rohit dwelled on pink-ball challenges.
"I think it's not just about getting used to the pace of the ball," he replied. "You know you are so used to playing with the red ball, and the pink ball certainly does a little bit more than the red ball. At the same time, we have been training here for the past three days and I certainly felt that the more time you spend playing the pink ball, it gets a little easier as well. The bounce is there, (so) obviously there will be challenges... The pink ball will have its own challenge under lights and during the day as well. You just have to find your own way of dealing with it."