India captain Rohit Sharma was under tremendous pressure leading to the second ODI against England at Barabati Stadium in Cuttack. He flopped in the Test series against New Zealand and Australia and also failed to justify his potential in the Ranji Trophy match against Jammu and Kashmir and also flopped against England in the first ODI. His performance raised doubts about his ability as a few reports also claimed that the cricketer might drop himself from the Champions Trophy squad if he doesn’t improve.
In the second ODI, the 37-year-old wreaked havoc, smashing 119 runs off 90 deliveries to squash all the doubts. His phenomenal knock helped India win the match by four wickets and eventually sealed the series. The Hitman, as he is popularly known, played an aggressive brand of cricket from the beginning and that set the tone and gave him the platform to score a century after 13 innings.
After the game, Rohit broke down his preparations and noted that he assessed the situation and was focused on getting back to form. He intended to bat as deep as possible and since the match was played on black soil, he opened the face of the bat to get the runs. The Nagpur-born also added that he got good support from Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, which made things easy.
I broke it into pieces how I wanted to bat. It’s a format that is longer than T20 cricket and a lot shorter than Tests. Still, you need to assess and bat according to the situation. I wanted to stay focused and bat as deep as possible,” Rohit said in the post-match presentation.
Looking at the pitch when you play on black soil, the pitch tends to skid on a bit so it’s important that you show the full face of the bat. Then they were trying to bowl into the body and not give room so I prepared my plan as well. I accessed the gaps and obviously, I got good support from Gill and then Shreyas,” he added.