After two successive failures in India's first two matches in the triangular series, talented middle-order batsman Rohit Sharma wears the expression of a man who is waiting to be shown the door.
Ironically, it's his own batting colleagues who could be sending him the distressing signals.
After spending the entire Test series on the sidelines, Rohit failed to deliver with the bat in the first two matches of the tri-series and to make matters worse for the right-hander, he is now made to understand that his place in the playing eleven is at the expense of one of the three senior openers — Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.
To add to it, the fact that Rohit is India's best limited-over batsman since the last World Cup is not enough to guarantee him a place in the playing eleven.
After the four-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Perth, India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni said Rohit was the reason why the three senior batsmen were being rotated.
“We would look to rotate (in Adelaide also). I want Rohit to play as many games as possible. It gives him an opportunity to get set. We can afford to give him chances in the first leg of the tournament,” Dhoni had said.
Dhoni's sentiments, on the face of it, are laudable. But Rohit should not be made a scapegoat as another youngster — Suresh Raina was no better with the bat in the first two ODIs.
The three young batsmen who man the middle order are Virat Kohli, Rohit and Raina. But Kohli doesn't enter the scenario as he is in the form of his life and is a natural starter in the eleven. But Raina's is a different story. The left-hander has scored only two half centuries in 22 matches since the last World Cup. Rohit, in contrast, has six in 13 games.
Raina's best average in any series since the World Cup is 44-odd, while Rohit, in two full series since the World Cup, averaged 128 and 76 plus.
The idea to rotate the top three in order to give a chance to a young middle-order batsman is a sound one, but to mark out Rohit as reason for rotation is grossly unfair to the Mumbai lad.
