Ton-up Rohit keeps the faith

Languid at his best, yet so effective that every time Rohit did his thing, the crowd couldn’t keep calm. Chasing 304 is never easy, but the skipper paved the way with a stupendous hundred — his 32nd in ODI cricket — as the hosts won by four wickets against England in the second ODI here on Sunday.

England tried hard, even though they probably fell at least 20 short of the par score here. Each of their top seven got starts, two of them (Ben Duckett and Joe Root) got to fifties but Jos Buttler and Root fell in the space of four overs to trigger a collapse as England lost their last seven wickets for 85.

The intent to consolidate was evident but indecisive running towards the end dented England’s scoring in a match they had to win to stay alive in the three-match series. Chief aggressor at the start was Duckett who was not holding back on his sweeps and reverse sweeps till he couldn’t middle a slog sweep off Ravindra Jadeja in the 16th over.

Making his debut, Varun Chakravarthy had got rid of Phil Salt but Root dug in to add 51 with Buttler before the England captain couldn’t clear mid-off. Root too fell soon after, almost scooping Jadeja to Virat Kohli stationed in the deep, leaving England a bit rudderless towards the end. Liam Livingstone was still around, pulling his team through a scrappy phase when England batters were not getting enough runs. He hit two sixes, Adil Rashid smashed three fours, and soon England had crossed 300.

As the day wore on, none of those hits mattered because once again Rohit had decided to give England a mighty charge. But with a plan this time. “I broke it down to pieces about how I wanted to bat,” he said after the match. “Longer than T20s and shorter than Tests, and I wanted to break it down. I wanted to bat as deep as possible and that was my focus.”

He was true to his instincts though. Gus Atkinson was trying to bowl challenging lines but Rohit came down to him and found a thick edge that flew over backward point for four. Atkinson tried a fuller length and this time Rohit stayed back and flicked off his toes for six. Straighter, and more importantly homing in on the off-stump, Saqib Mahmood erred in pitching fuller. Leaning in gently, Rohit unleashed his lever for a stand-and-deliver six, sending the ball over covers and into the crowd.

More pace, this time from Mark Wood, shorter as well and Rohit almost got a nick trying to nudge the ball. Wood angled in the next ball fuller, and Rohit stayed low and carted over long-on for a breathtaking six. More audacious was the four he smacked off Wood in his next over. This was bowled at over 140 clicks but Rohit didn’t care as he gave him the charge, smashing the ball through mid-off. Pace on, pace off, it didn’t matter because Rohit had made up his mind not to hold back. Not even to Adil Rashid’s leg-spin, waiting for the turn and cutting him past point to raise his fifty.

After a point, neither the target nor Rohit’s score seemed to matter as long as the hits kept coming. Shubman Gill got to a fifty but so blinding was the carnage unleashed by India’s captain that even that went unnoticed. Which only says how disruptive Rohit’s batting can be and what India had missed of late. All timing, head often not over the ball, feet dragging behind the shot at times, but scintillating to watch when put together as a reel of amazing strokes. The century-raising hit too — skipping down the track to Rashid and lifting it over long-off for six.

But for Rashid holding on to a steep catch in the 30th over, Rohit would have probably finished the match in another 10 overs. Forced to take fresh guard thus, India lost momentum as well as wickets. Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel were moving along well till Iyer scrambled too far down the pitch despite Patel turning down the run. KL Rahul was caught behind trying to pull a short ball and Hardik Pandya was caught at deep square leg trying to go after Atkinson. Patel though stood firm along with Jadeja to ensure India didn’t stutter again for the rest of the chase.