Playing high-risk game is my individual choice: Rohit
At the end of the 2019 World Cup, Rohit had scored 27 hundreds but in the last four years he could add only three more centuries to his tally.
Rohit Sharma
NEW DELHI: Rohit Sharma traded caution with aggression to add a different dimension to his batting and the Indian skipper is happy with the results even if it means not getting those daddy hundreds.
At the end of the 2019 World Cup, Rohit had scored 27 hundreds but in the last four years he could add only three more centuries to his tally. The captain largely believes that this is because of the high-risk game he has adopted.
“I wanted to take more risks, which is why my numbers are slightly different now,” Rohit said.
“My (ODI) strike-rate (during this period) has increased but the average has dipped a bit. This is exactly what our batting coach (Vikram Rathour) was telling me, ‘You have scored big runs because of the way you batted all these years and in the last few years, it (big runs) has not happened because you are taking risk,” the skipper added.
Rohit is the only player to have scored three double hundreds -- 209 (vs Australia, 2013), 264 (vs Sri Lanka, 2014) and 208* (vs Sri Lanka, 2017).
His last 150-plus knock came in 2019 against the West Indies in Vizag.
Rohit said that he had to compromise somewhere down the line.
“My career strike-rate is around 90 (89.97) but in the past couple of years, if you look at my scores and take the strike-rate into consideration, it has been around 105-110. So somewhere you had to compromise. It is not possible to have a 55 average and a 110 strike-rate.”
This high-risk game is also a process of his self-discovery, said Rohit.
“It was purely my choice. My usual batting is still my patent, but I wanted to try something else. I am very happy with the result.”
In fact, he had communicated his change of approach to the team management.
“Everyone wants to bat long and score those 150s and 170s. I still want to do that, but it is always nice to do something that you have not done. It only adds up in your list of batting abilities. Unless you do it, you won’t know it.
“I know if I play high risk shots, I will get out a few times but I didn’t bother. This was communicated by me to the management that this is how I want to play.”
