Rohit Sharma's slide as Test opener was unstoppable, couldn't buy a run

Rohit Sharma will be the first to acknowledge that his Test career will remain one less fulfilled. For all his brilliance in the two limited-overs formats, his Test record didn't touch the dizzying heights his ability, or the stirring start that fetched him centuries in his first two outings, promised.

It wasn't for lack of effort, though. The very fact that he was willing, and able, to open the batting successfully, nearly six years after his Test debut in 2013, is indicative of his desire to stamp his authority in the red-ball version too. To be fair to him, until the last season, he did a more than competent job at the top of the order, the crowning glory being the four Tests in England in 2021 before which he worked assiduously to cut out the frills and prepare himself to tackle the menace that is the swinging Dukes ball.

Depending on how one views it, Rohit's sudden retirement, without warning, seemingly days before the team for the five-match tour of England from next month is to be announced, is either a surprise or not. Perhaps, after the horror run in the season gone by when he made just one half-century in eight Tests and sat himself out of the Sydney decider against Australia convinced him that, at 38 and with a new World Test Championship imminent, it was time to move on and entrust the leadership and opening responsibilities to a younger, if not necessarily the same, man.

Rohit's Test career

In so many ways, Rohit's Test career has been a jinxed one. He was a sure shot to debut against South Africa in February 2010, only to pick up an ankle injury playing touch football on the morning of the Nagpur outing and losing more than three and a half years. When he did finally earn his Test spurs, he followed up 177 on debut in Kolkata with an unbeaten 111 in Sachin Tendulkar's farewell game in Mumbai. It ought to have been the passing of the baton, but Rohit couldn't quite live up to that lofty beginning and gradually began to fade away, untimely injuries not helping his cause.

Five hundreds at the 2019 World Cup and India's continued quest for a Test opener almost compelled Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri to ask Rohit to open at home against South Africa in October 2019. Determined to stick to his aggressive avatar, he reeled off centuries in both innings in Visakhapatnam in his first hits as opener and followed it up with a double in the same series. But it was in England in 2021, when he and KL Rahul provided India with numerous wonderful starts, that Rohit showcased an adaptability and a willingness to graft that not everyone believed nestled in him.

A maiden overseas hundred at The Oval was the icing on the cake and should have been the springboard to greater things. The slump didn't come immediately but when it did, it was almost unstoppable. At home against Bangladesh and New Zealand, and in Australia, he struggled to buy a run. Having missed the Perth win where Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rahul put on 201 in the second innings, he dropped down the order in Adelaide and Brisbane without success, returned to open in Melbourne and then dropped himself in Sydney because he felt he didn't deserve a place in the best XI.

Rohit has always been that way, putting team ahead of self, and this decision to retire, surely taken after much deliberation, must be viewed from that same perspective. He could have carried on if he wanted to, one suspects, with his stock again on the upswing after the Champions Trophy triumph, but the Mumbaikar isn't wired that way.

Some might say he saw the writing on the wall and quit before he was dropped -- or at least sacked as captain, as one report suggested hours before his retirement announcement -- but that will remain mere speculation. It's more likely that he doesn't have the motivation anymore to put himself through the long grind, especially after having become a father for a second time some five and a half months back. And who is to say that he hasn't earned the right to go out on his own terms?

This is another, perhaps the most shining, example of his legacy as a team player. He will certainly be missed, as much for his leadership and pithy one-liners as for his muscular batting. But he signs out as an example, a champion to emulate even if his Test numbers aren't exactly champion material.