'Loved the way how he curbed his natural instinct' - Sunil Gavaskar lavishes praise on Rohit Sharma

India opening batter Rohit Sharma finally broke his drought an overseas Test Hundred by scoring a patient 127 off 256 balls at The Oval in the ongoing fourth Test against England. It was a hard grind for the elegant right-hand batter as he had to bide his time before playing his shots. Sharma had also got starts in the previous three Tests but threw it away. However, this time he was determined to help India get in a commanding position after they had conceded a lead of 99 runs in the first innings.

Sharma was also ready to leave the good balls and curbed his natural instincts. The 34-year-old also formed a crucial 154-run stand with Cheteshwar Pujara and allowed India to reach a solid 270/3 in the second innings. His brilliant hundred in testing conditions were lauded by experts and critics.

Sunil Gavaskar lavished praise on Rohit Sharma and loved the technical aspects of his game. “Incredible knock. Very, very impressive, for the simple reason that the way he was covering the swing when the ball was new. Not just here, but even in the earlier matches.

“The way he was playing very late, the way he had the bat and pad close to each other… not pushing at deliveries. Once he settled down, then all the shots began to flow. But then the most impressive thing is the straightness of his bat when he’s defending. Then of course the use of his feet to get to his Test century,” Gavaskar said on the Sony Sports Network.

Gavaskar hopes for many more tons from Rohit in Tests

Sharma’s eighth Test ton was also one of his slowest and Sunil Gavaskar liked the fact that how he was ready to give it some time and stay patient. Known to play aggressively, the opening batsman didn’t let the pressure of run-scoring get to him this time around.

“Once he got to fifty, he opened up. He’s widened the range of his shots. He’s played the V, played the cuts and the sweep shot. That’s exactly how a Test match innings has to be built. That is the biggest challenge of players of his genius. For someone like him or GR Viswanath, or Azharuddin… they all had different options for deliveries. They could play on the on side and the off side, but then to curb that and play what is needed for the occasion is very important and that’s what he’s done today,” Gavaskar added.

The 72-year-old further concluded by saying that he expects Sharma to score more overseas hundreds in the near future. “He’s shown to himself that he can do that. Many more on the way. He has realized I need to play more than those lovely cameos, those lovely 30s, 40s. Mind you, even in T20s, he was scoring heaps of runs, getting 70s, 80s, 100s over there as well, because he realized, he has to bat and take the responsibility and bat throughout 20 runs,” Gavaskar pointed out.