Rohit Sharma's Test journey ends, but ODI World Cup dream lives on

Rohit Sharma has announced his retirement from Test cricket with just over a month to go for India's tour of England. Rohit's decision means someone new will take over India's captaincy in the first Test at Leeds on June 20. Rohit goes out as India's 10th most successful Test captain, winning 12 out of 24 matches. It's still the most wins for any skipper who captained India in less than 40 Tests, as a win percentage of 60 demonstrates, the same as MS Dhoni. Ever since he took over as India's all-format captain, Rohit led India to two big series wins – against Australia in 2023 and England in 2024. However, the remainder of the year didn't work as well as he'd have imagined, as in October, New Zealand inflicted a 3-0 clean sweep on India to break their 12-year-long streak of home dominance.

Rohit's decision to bid adieu to Tests isn't exactly a shocker, as the Indian captain has been struggling for form. Having retired from T20Is last June, Rohit decided to step aside on the heels of a poor Test series against Australia, where he simply couldn't get going. With scores of 3, 6, 10 and 3, Rohit looked at sixes and sevens – be batting in the middle order or opening the innings. Such were his struggles that Rohit was forced to drop himself from the fifth and final Test in Sydney where Jasprit Bumrah took over. Still, India lost the series 1-3 and had to relinquish the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in 8 years.

However, Rohit's Test retirement now allows him to channel all his energy and focus on ODIS going forward. Having captained India to the final of the ODI World Cup in 2023, a T20 World Cup triumph year and a successful Champions Trophy campaign, Rohit must have just one goal in mind. That Rohit will only play one international format increases his chances of playing the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, and although he will be 40 by then, another 50-over showpiece extravaganza cannot be ruled out.

Rohit retires with 4301 runs from 67 Tests, averaging 40.57 with 12 centuries. These may not reflect as the greatest of statistics given just how big a match-winner and player he has been for India in ODIs and T20Is, but Rohit's real renaissance in Tests began in 2019 when he was promoted as an opener. Like the 2013 Champions Trophy, the home Test series against South Africa, Rohit's second coming in Tests began with a bang, as he ended with 529 runs from three matches at a rollicking average of 132.25. In his first match as Test opener, Rohit blasted twin centuries – 176 and 127, and followed it with his maiden double ton, smashing 212 at Ranchi.

Rohit Sharma's Test career of two halves

Rohit never looked back. Over the next five years, Rohit would go on to hit five more hundreds, including his maiden ton overseas. His knock of 127 at the Oval – and 83 at Lord's – played a pivotal role in India drawing the 2021 series in England 2-2. In between, Rohit played a couple more noteworthy innings – 161 in Chennai against England in 2021 and 120 against Australia in Nagpur 2023 on rank turners as he kept going from strength to strength. In the maiden WTC cycle, Rohit scored 1094 runs from 19 innings at an average of 60.77 and 758 from 19 more at 42.11 in the second. However, the ongoing one has been a struggle for Rohit, with 855 runs from as many as 30 innings.

Even this year, as Rohit led India to a 3-1 series win against England at home, the captain led from the front, scoring 400 runs, including two centuries. In fact, Rohit remains the most successful opener in WTC, with more than 2600 runs, but the second half of this year has been a blow to the gut.

Rohit, the opener, fared a lot better than Rohit, the middle-order batter. Having made his Test debut in 2013 – Sachin Tendulkar's farewell series, Rohit scored a hundred on debut and registered the second-highest score (177), next to Shikhar Dhawan's 187 the same year. He followed it with another century in the next match but had to wait four years for his third Test ton. As India toured Australia in 2014 and South Africa and England in 2018, Rohit got limited opportunities. From November 2013 to October 2019, Rohit scored 1585 runs in 27 matches at an average of 39.60, a far cry from his returns as opener – 2685 runs from 37 Tests, averaging 44.01.