One of the inexplicable but more frenzied universal endeavours is to go to great lengths to install an individual on a pedestal, and then work equally hard in seeking to derive vicarious pleasure by systematically pulling that same individual down. In India, especially, that privilege is reserved for sportspersons in general, and cricketers particularly. No one has been immune to this syndrome, not Jasprit Bumrah or Virat Kohli, not even Sachin Tendulkar or Anil Kumble. So, why should Rohit Sharma be an exception?

Not so long back, Rohit was the toast of the nation. He masterminded a spectacular run at the 2024 T20 World Cup, lighting up the stage with several incisive knocks including in the league stage against Australia and the semifinal against England, as India ended an agonising 11-year wait for an ICC trophy, and a 17-year drought in the flagship event of the shortest format. In March last year, he oversaw another stirring triumph, this time in the desert sands of Dubai, at the Champions Trophy, India finishing the tournament with an all-win record to wrap their hands around the cup for the first time since 2013.

Between these two glorious triumphs, however, his graph dropped in the Test arena. At home against Bangladesh and then New Zealand, and away in Australia, he mustered just one half-century in 15 innings. An unprecedented 3-0 hammering at the hands of New Zealand at home was followed by a forgettable tour down under. After missing the first Test in Perth on paternity leave, he dropped down the order to keep the new opening pair of Yashasvi Jaiswal and K.L. Rahul intact in Adelaide and Brisbane, where three innings netted a mere 19 runs. Rohit returned to the top of the tree in Melbourne, but after efforts of 3 and 9, sat himself out of the decider in Sydney. He insisted then that he wasn’t calling it quits from the five-day game, but four months later, he announced his retirement from Test cricket, some six weeks before the tour of England.

Once he bid adieu to the longest version, Rohit officially became a one-format international. He had already signed off from T20Is minutes after holding aloft the World Cup in Bridgetown in June 2024. Now, he only had the 50-over canvas to use as his medium to continue to paint the prettiest pictures, with his predecessor as India captain, Virat Kohli, for sterling company in the same weather worn but sturdy boat.

It’s been 13 months since first Rohit, and then Kohli, transitioned into only ODI specialists. It’s some 13 months (give or take a month) to the next 50-over World Cup, to be held in the Africas. The burning question on the minds of everyone even remotely invested and interested in Indian cricket is whether these two stalwarts will be available for the World Cup. And whether, that being the case, they will be considered for selection.

Valid questions

On the face of it, these appear valid questions. Rohit will be 40 and a half at the start of the World Cup, Kohli will turn 39 during the tournament. Considering that they will form two-thirds of the top three, all other things being equal, they will front up as vital early enforcers, Rohit more than Kohli with his penchant for taking down the bowling when the field restrictions are in place in the first 10 overs. They will need to be on top of not just their cricket, but also their fitness. They know that, much better than anyone else. Let’s give them that, let’s give them the respect that their experience and their contributions to the sport deserve. But no, we won’t let them be, will we?

And therefore, every time one or both of these worthies turns up in the India Blue, they are placed under immense scrutiny. The narrative that is being sought to be projected is that every game is an audition, every innings an extension of the alleged lifeline they have been thrown. Is this the way to treat anyone, let alone two of the greatest white-ball players of all time?

In recent times, though, there has been a conscious move to stop looking at Rohit and Kohli as a package deal. A package deal that, let’s admit, we are the ones who created in the first place. Kohli, we are told, has managed to buy himself more time after a rip-roaring IPL 2026 in which he finished as the tournament’s fourth highest run-maker, striking at a career-best 165.84 per 100 balls and once again influencing Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s title run, like he had 12 months previously.

The same IPL that has allowed Kohli ‘breathing room’ has served as the catalyst to ignite fresh debates over Rohit’s future. The former Mumbai Indians skipper began the season with a blazing 78 as his franchise won its opening match for the first time in more than a dozen years. After three further innings, he picked up a hamstring injury that kept him out of action for three weeks. On his comeback, he smashed 84 at his beloved Wankhede Stadium to emphatic ally fears over whether he had made a complete recovery. He backed that up with cameos – 22, 25 and 15 – before being dismissed without scoring in his final fixture, ending with 283 runs at a strike-rate of 157.22. Despite missing five games, the 39-year-old was his side’s fourth highest run-maker. But relevant stats seldom matter when a convenient tale is sought to be spun.

Indian cricket, and selection specifically, seems to have slipped into the grip of ambivalence if one is to go by recent developments. Less than a year after he was named the Test vice-captain, Rishabh Pant has lost that responsibility, replaced by K.L. Rahul who is one of the few players to have led the country in all formats. Despite doing precious wrong in the successful defence of the World Cup crown in March, Axar Patel has ceded that same status in T20Is to Tilak Varma. There hasn’t been a convincing explanation on what precipitated these decisions.

That same ambivalence has seeped into other aspects, including roared whispers and innuendos about Rohit’s fitness, more than anything else. Rohit came into the IPL having shed plenty of weight, and despite the hamstring injury that must have come as a dampener, he ensured that he stayed light on his feet. Clearly, he has invested a great deal of time, effort and intensity in trying to become the fittest version of himself. Of course, he isn’t doing anyone a favour, but the very fact that he is willing to give it his all at this stage of his career to keep himself relevant is credit to the passionate inner fire.

The hamstring injury has become a convenient stick to beat him with. By the same token, Test and ODI skipper Shubman Gill’s troublesome neck could be a talking point too. Gill missed the Bengaluru annihilation by New Zealand in October 2024 (India were shot out for 46) and the Guwahati misadventure against South Africa last November (when they slumped to a record 408-run pounding) with a neck problem which clearly is chronic. Thankfully, his injury is being treated with the empathy it deserves. It’s time that courtesy is extended to the others too, never mind if they are 39 years young.

If India’s think-tank believes that it needs to look beyond Rohit when it comes to the World Cup, the humane thing will be to let him know so. But if it has an ‘open mind’, as it insists in public, maybe the members of the collective will be better advised to refrain from a pointed remark here, a pithy comment there, bordering on the potshot. Nobody, least of all India’s most successful limited-overs captain alongside Mahendra Singh Dhoni, should be put in that position.

Last month, in a podcast, Kohli made his views on the constant microscopic attention and the will-he-should-he World Cup presence conundrum clear in emphatic terms. “I work as hard, if not harder than anyone else,” he pointed out. “You want me to run boundary to boundary for 40 overs in an ODI game? I will do that without a complaint. Because I prepare accordingly. I prepare for the fact that I will field 50 overs, every ball like it’s the last ball I’m going to play in my career. And I will bat that way. And I will run between the wickets that way. And I will do everything possible for the team.

“After operating like this, if I have to be in a place where I have to prove my worth and value, that place is not meant to be for me… I’ve been asked so many times, do you want to play (the) ’27 (World Cup)’? I know the answer. Like, why would I leave my home, you know, get my stuff over…? Of course, if I’m playing, I want to play cricket. I want to carry on. Playing a World Cup for India is amazing. But as I said, the value has to be two sides.”

Kohli might have been speaking for Rohit too (package deal, remember?) even if Rohit may not run ‘boundary to boundary for 40 overs’ or run between the wickets like the original energiser bunny. But while Kohli has always been that way, Rohit has never been likewise, so how fair is it to expect him to suddenly start doing things that he has never done before just because he is 39 years of age? At the end of the day, it’s important for those who address these issues to figure out what it is they want of Rohit – a world-class, fit (-looking?) athlete all of a sudden, or the destructive batter that he has been since he started opening in ODIs in January 2013.

Rohit must be feeling the strain, no doubt. Already, the ready smile on the field that was such an endearing feature is going out of fashion. Maybe he is still the same one-liner-driven humourist inside the dressing room, but let’s not take that for granted. And it isn’t benevolence that is dictating Rohit’s continued presence at the international level. Let’s not forget that, either.