Rampaging Rohit Sharma the right man after all to lead India at T20 Word Cup

He wasn’t amused when Virender Sharma signalled four leg-byes after Rohit glanced Farid Malik for four first-ball, in the first over of the contest; after all, he was coming off ducks in his two previous games.

He was incensed when a full-toss above waist height from Karim Janat wasn’t called a no-ball by the same official, now stationed at square-leg.

He was exuberantly celebratory when Virat Kohli ran 25 yards to his right from long-off to snaffle a steepling skier under great pressure to get rid of Najibullah Zadran.

And he was beside himself with fury when, off the final delivery of the first Super Over, Mohammad Nabi and Rahmanullah Gurbaz ran two extra byes despite the ball ricocheting off the former’s pads for overthrows. Conventionally, batters don’t run when the ball deflects off their bat or body.

But Rohit hardly lapsed into great emotion when he brought up a magnificent century, his fifth in all Twenty20 Internationals and first in more than five years. It was as if that was the least he expected of himself. Yes, there was the customary slump in the embrace of his partner Rinku Singh, who helped him add 190 after India had subsided to a scarcely believable 22 for four against Afghanistan in Bengaluru. Yes, he acknowledged the cheers of a slightly-more-than-half-full-house audience which had streamed in hoping to see adopted son Virat Kohli (out first ball) cut loose. Yes, he raised his bat towards the dugout, which was equal parts relieved and delighted. But there was no Tarzan-like yell, no frenzied whipping off of the helmet, no exaggerated leap in the air, no punching of the fist.

Rohit might himself have felt a touch of relief when he was allowed, eventually, to get off the mark off his seventh delivery. No matter how many runs one might have amassed – Rohit has upwards of 18,000 of those in international cricket alone – the first runs in every new knock trigger a certain easing of the nerves, the satisfaction of knowing that one has got past the dreaded duck. Rohit had two of them on the bounce in his first T20Is in 14 months; surely, the itch for one run, just one run, would have been immense.

Few would have grudged him had he raised his bat in mock celebration at moving to 1. But 1 was not what Rohit was after. The dramatic collapse meant even if the series was already in the bag, plenty of work remained ahead of him. And that’s only within the smaller, more immediate context. Viewed from the larger-picture perspective, Rohit needed to make a statement, if only for himself.

The last couple of IPLs weren’t particularly productive – he made only 268 runs in 14 matches in 2022 and 332 in 16 last year – and he boasted a solitary half-century in his previous 14 international T20 innings. Having explicitly informed the selectors of his intention to lead the side at this June’s T20 World Cup, he must have been aware that he had to walk the talk. The last two blobs must have hurt, but Rohit was neither feckless nor conservative on the evening, refusing to allow the early sluggishness of the surface to frustrate him into errors.

Initially only slightly more than subdued, he took 41 deliveries to reach 50. That was during the stabilising phase when India could ill afford a fifth setback. Then, without warning, he went into overdrive; 50 to 100 came off a further 23 deliveries, his last 71 runs off 28. It was mesmeric, brutal, aesthetically pleasing; it had power, timing, finesse. It was Rohit at his marauding best, his full range on view. And we really mean the full range – including two furious reverse-sweeps, one for six, the other for four. The reverse isn’t quintessential Rohit, but he showed that even at 36, he isn’t averse to adding new tricks and bolstering his repertoire. If anyone doubted his commitment to the cause of intrepidness and a certain gay abandon, those were comprehensively exploded at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Rohit possibly needed a record fifth T20I hundred – he eased ahead of Suryakumar Yadav and Glenn Maxwell on that count – more than anyone else. More than his teammates, more than the support staff, more than the selection committee. If he wasn’t sure if he had done right by the team in staking his claim for the World Cup, he won’t be any longer. He will be in North America by right, not for any other reason. The value of that can’t ever be quantified.