Has Rohit Sharma’s talent finally fulfilled its promise?

Rohit Sharma has been forever been tagged a “talented” batsman whose performances couldn’t quite match up to his to that talent. He was dubbed as the “maggi man” and his memes were widely spread on social media. Even the critics were harsh on him, a lot of them agreed that he lacked the urge to just stick it out in the middle.

Fantastically, in 2015 everyone has started believing that Rohit Sharma has finally matched up to that “talent” a tag that he loathes, something that he feels weighs him down. A lot of commentators are quick to jump the gun and call it “Lazy elegance” whenever he plays a shot where it doesn’t look like he even flinched to play at. There have been a lot of people saying that Rohit has finally made a turnaround to his fortunes in 2015. All of that might not exactly be true.

Let me roll back a few years, Champions Trophy 2013, where Dhoni promoted Rohit Sharma as Shikhar Dhawan’s opening partner. That is when Rohit got things going in his favour. For most part of his career until that point, Rohit would always have to settle for the No. 4-6 in the one day setup. Not quite his preferred position. He is one of the best in the world when it comes to stroke making. He makes it look ridiculously easy, but what pinned him down is that he takes some time to settle down get used to the bowling, conditions and then accelerate, but he wasn’t comfortable doing that lower down the order. Hardly would you see Rohit Sharma going slam-bang from the first ball. As a matter of fact when he scored his first double century, he scored only 25 runs off 35 balls in the 1^st 10 overs and even when scored his second double century, he scored merely 12 off 25 in the 1^st 10 overs. No one would’ve predicted what he’d go on to do that day.

But coming back to his promotion to the top of the order, Rohit has made that place his own. Since the beginning of 2013 he has scored 2552 runs at an average of 53.16, only Dhoni has a better average than him in Indian batsmen and his innings per fifty plus score at 2.58 (21 in 54 innings) is best amongst all openers during this period. So it is fit to say that it isn’t only this year where Rohit Sharma has come good. Let us also take into perspective that he worked hard on his temperament, even lost a lot of weight got fitter, the criticism still not dying down because his failures are looked at with a microscope.

This year though, critics are lauding him, which is well deserved. Majorly because, over the last couple of years, people only remembered his double centuries but beyond that his performances where overshadowed by the in-form trio of Dhoni, Kohli and Dhawan who averaged 58.55, 55.28 and 49.42 respectively in 2013 and 2014. This year though, their collective failure and Rohit’s rise in stature with a couple of crucial centuries at the massive MCG has put all the eyeballs on him. His form against South Africa too has been spectacular and he hardly looks troubled against any bowler. His mode of dismissals is something that he would like to forget as India’s charge fizzled out in both the chases after he got out. With 2 ODIs left in the series and India also not playing any ODIs this year, he would like to end the year on a high and win the series for his team and the added bonus his that the final game of the series will be played in his home ground, The Wankhede Stadium, where they absolutely love him.