Rohit Sharma – The man to succeed Tendulkar?

This Mumbaikar was once considered to be ‘the’ best young batsman all over the country, His 16-ball 30 in the 2007 World T20 final was numerically not a big contribution, but made the ultimate difference in India winning the title. With his form in the 2008 ODIs in Australia being sparkling, Rohit Sharma’s stocks were higher than Rahul Dravid’s!

His IPL performances in the last 6 years have been extremely consistent, but unfortunately he could not replicate that at the international level and that hurt the team to some extent. With the resurgence of Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina, Rohit having no business in the ODI team was a given.

However, the combination of MS Dhoni and Duncan Fletcher as captain and coach helped him improve his game in the last 18 months. Fletcher has focussed on his batting skills and mental strength. While Dhoni has persisted with him for long, knowing his immense talent much like Azharuddin did with Tendulkar in the early 90s.

Tendulkar was batting at No.4 in ODI cricket but his potential was being wasted, before he got the chance to open the batting in 1994 when Navjot Singh Sidhu got injured on the eve of a match. This might have been dumb luck, but the rest is history.

Rohit also batted in the middle order generally and he too was fortunate to have peaked at a time when Tendulkar’s form started dipping alarmingly in ODIs and thus Dhoni felt that he could form a new opening partnership with Shikhar Dhawan.

So far, he has made the most of this opportunity with his quick-fire 40s and 50s giving the team a platform for a huge score. He now seems to have lost his fear of being dismissed early as he does not have to play rash shots and thus, his form of mid-2011 is returning again.

In his 102 matches so far, Rohit has only hit 2 one day hundreds while Sachin had hit 5 at the same stage, struggling to convert his fifties into hundreds. There lies another similarity!

Perhaps what eludes him now the most is a regular place in the Test team. Rohit has expressed his desire to open the batting in this format as well. But looking at the dearth of specialist opening batsmen already available, it would not be long before he could replace an aging Tendulkar at the No.4 spot. He pretty much has the flair of a Mumbai batsman, elegant yet stable in batting.

Now that he is well settled in limited overs cricket, he could be the new Tendulkar for India batting wise in the future.