‘Rohit Sharma was very clear when he led the team that he was in control’

Book extract

The (IPL) team auctions were held on 24 January 2008 and the first-ever player auctions on 20 February 2008, when the Indian team was playing in a triangular series in Australia with Sri Lanka as the third team. After the team auctions, five “icon players” were identified, who would be the face of the franchises based in their city. For Mumbai Indians, it was Sachin Tendulkar. Rahul Dravid was Royal Challengers Bangalore’s marquee player, Sourav Ganguly was for Kolkata Knight Riders, Virender Sehwag for Delhi Daredevils, and Yuvraj Singh for Kings XI Punjab. Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals didn’t boast anyone from the respective states/cities deserving of the icon status. That left Deccan Chargers, for whom V.V.S. Laxman was the designated icon.

As the rules stood, the icon player would get 15 per cent more than the most expensive player of the team procured at the auction. Laxman voluntarily surrendered his icon status so that his team owners could utilize the additional amount at the auction and augment the cricketing activities run under the aegis of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. Even if he was not the icon, Laxman was the captain of the franchise and one of the first names in his bucket list at the auction was Rohit. Deccan Chargers left no stone unturned in their effort to acquire Rohit’s services, shelling out US $750,000 for the 20-year-old who, at the time of the auction, was not even eight months young in international cricket.

Rohit didn’t disappoint Laxman or the leadership group within the team even though Deccan Chargers brought up the foot of the table in the inaugural edition of the IPL. Rohit’s first tryst with the IPL was an unqualified individual success; over time, he would fuse that with team triumphs too, including five as captain with Mumbai Indians. A third good season with the bat in 2010 meant that teams were lining up for Rohit’s services. The mega auction ahead of IPL 2011 was the stage where a fierce bidding war unfolded, at the end of which Mumbai Indians emerged triumphant, shelling out US$2 million to herald Rohit’s homecoming. Rohit walked into a Mumbai Indians dugout with acknowledged superstars of the game—the legendary Tendulkar, who was the captain, Sri Lankan giants Sanath Jayasuriya and Lasith Malinga, Harbhajan Singh, who would go on to lead the team in 2012, experienced Kiwi James Franklin, and a sensational emerging talent in Kieron Pollard. In his three years with Deccan Chargers, Rohit had shown that he wouldn’t be overawed by the big names. 

Ahead of IPL 2013, Mumbai Indians roped in Anil Kumble as the team’s mentor to complement head coach John Wright and his support staff. Harbhajan asked to be relieved of the captaincy and Dinesh Karthik was briefly looked at as a possible replacement. When that didn’t work out, Mumbai Indians became determined to ensnare former Australian captain Ricky Ponting as their new skipper. “Ricky’s performances weren’t anything to write home about,” Kumble says, “and it’s not easy to go to someone and say you need to step aside. But to his credit, Ricky realized that he wasn’t pulling his weight and stepped aside on his own, which was big of him.”

Once that happened, Rohit became an automatic choice to succeed the Australian. “When John and I went to his room in Kolkata and sat him down and told him he was ready (to be the captain), he didn’t even bat an eyelid,” an admiring Kumble reveals. He was very clear when he led the team that he was in control. You could see that he was not overawed by the big names in the team and in the dugout. “A lot of it also came down to the respect he commanded in the dressing room,” points out Parthiv Patel, the former India stumper who played under Rohit at MI between 2015 and 2017, when the franchise won two titles. “Everybody knew that whatever decision he took was only in the interest of the team. There were no personal biases. And on top of everything, he was very good with his communication.”

The cares and responsibilities of captaincy didn’t adversely impact Rohit the batter. In his first half-season as captain in 2013, Rohit made 538 runs—the only time he has topped the 500-run mark in his IPL career. Two years later, when Mumbai won their second crown in 2015, his runs were marginally less, but his strike-rate had grown to 144.74 (from 131.54). And even though Rohit had started to open in both white-ball formats for India, the mentor at his franchise wanted him in a different role. “I was still sort of aligning him to play in the middle order for Mumbai Indians, which was not really what he wanted; he wanted to open the batting,” Kumble says.

Having been one of the foot soldiers during Deccan Chargers’ title run in South Africa in 2009, Rohit masterminded five title runs in eight years as the Mumbai Indians’ general. Rohit might now be lost to Twenty20 International cricket as both batter and captain following his retirement after the World Cup success, but his influence on the game at that level will resonate for a long time to come. Of course, the IPL is still his oyster.

Extracted with permission from The Rise of The Hitman — The Rohit Sharma Story by R Kaushik, published by Rupa Publications India

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