They have been giving us less and less time at the crease together in this format, the one whose limits they have most stretched
Andrew Fidel Fernando07-Mar-20253:05
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It felt like the final scene of a beloved show, whose characters you have watched grow and change for a decade and plenty. Virat Kohli strode to the crease, every sinew bristling with purpose. Rohit Sharma leaned on his bat and watched Kohli come, almost inert.They batted 2.5 overs together in the Champions Trophy semi-final against Australia, Rohit making seven off ten balls in Kohli’s company, Kohli gleaning five off seven. Too short a time to savour their co-gianthood. Barely a glimpse into the interplay between two men who have defined so much about Indian cricket, and by extension the game in the latest age.In fact, they have been giving us less and less time at the crease together in this format, the one whose limits they have most stretched. That Kohli will be regarded the greatest chaser in its history has been beyond obvious for years. Rohit is the architect of its most gargantuan innings, that 264 at Eden Gardens still feeling like a fever dream a decade later.Related
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But in the last five years, they have made no more than 436 runs in each other’s company. ODIs are infrequently played now, of course, but in that time, Rohit has made almost five times as many runs (2019) with Shubman Gill. Even Kohli has had more productive partnerships with Gill (913), as well as with Shreyas Iyer (1181) and KL Rahul (913).Partly this is down to Rohit spinning off in a new direction. Where Kohli continues to impose himself on the middle and late overs when form allows, Rohit has become almost exclusively a powerplay artisan, frequently gone before Kohli arrives, and interested only in continuing to hack at the bowling rather than build an old-school block-by-block innings even when he isn’t. It’s worth repeating that the guy who specialises in hitting 60-odd off 40-odd balls was once thought to be an unstoppable six-hitting monster only he had spent 60 to 70 balls at the crease.Kohli’s feet have touched the ground in other formats. In Tests, he has even skidded along for some time, like a regular mortal. He still loves those big numbers against his name, of course, propelled forever by that internal fire that burns like a neutron star. And in ODIs, he is, still, largely managing them – his average of 52.56 over the past five years not much worse than his overall numbers, his strike rate almost exactly where it always had been. Their spending less time at the crease together is not really doing.Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, the ODI giants•BCCIAnd yet, although the Kohli-Rohit Venn diagram overlap is shrinking, they are both still there, very clearly driven by the pursuit of India’s success. In this tournament, Kohli has led two chases – against Pakistan and Australia, hitting 100 not out and 84. It had been Rohit’s 41 off 36, against Bangladesh, however, that had bought India’s middle order the time to arrest a middle-overs mini-collapse (they lost 3 for 22 at one point) on a difficult surface. This is exactly what these Rohit innings are meant to do – ease the progress of the remainder of that top order. Rohit prides himself on his sparkling support acts. It fits that although he wears leadership more lightly than Kohli ever did, he is the World Cup-winning captain out of the two of them.In Tuesday’s semi-final, their most intense moment together came in the field sometime during the middle overs, when Kuldeep Yadav yanked his hand away at the non-striker’s end, instead of cleanly receiving Kohli’s bounce-throw from the outfield, and Kohli and Rohit, standing in the distance either side of the bowler, raised their voices simultaneously to give poor Kuldeep an acerbic surround-sound bollocking. They might not be putting up the numbers they used to in each other’s company, but this much at least they do together.2:19
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And their numbers once were genuinely awesome. Until March 7, 2020, Kohli and Rohit had made 4878 runs in partnership, a figure surpassed for India only by the legendary opening combination of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly. Their partnership brought India 65.04 runs on average, which is way better even than Tendulkar-Ganguly (47.55). In fact, the pity in that era was that Kohli and Rohit didn’t find enough occasions in which it was possible for them to dovetail as batters. They had played 176 ODIs together through that period but batted together only 80 times.There is, additionally, this consideration: the Rohit-Kohli relationship does not immediately feel like one of the greatest bromances ever told. Not that there has ever been obvious friction. But the relationship has not conformed to a model others have set down – one artist, and one technician, sharing an elemental bond. Just in this century, and just in South Asia, we have had Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, and the 2001 epic by which their careers will always be partly remembered. There was also Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, who smiled at each other across a dressing room one day and knew straightaway they were destined to sell very expensive crab together (they did also score some runs). Kohli-Rohit has never threatened to be sappy, but then who cares, also? Theirs is primarily a professional relationship. They have made each other greater for India – of that, there is no question.Though each of these batters clearly have more left in them, it feels like we have left the best Rohit+Kohli years behind. Which makes the rare occasions on which they bat together all the sweeter – two eagles circling on the same thermal, each acutely aware of the other, but not directly interacting, nor ever getting in the other’s way. One day, not long from now, we will look up, and they will be gone.