Ashwin recalls conversation when Virat Kohli called Rohit Sharma a 'nightmare'

India are blessed with some of the best batters the game has ever seen. In every generation, there has been at least one standout performer who has represented the nation, whether it was the great Sunil Gavaskar in the dominant West Indies era or the ‘Master Blaster’ Sachin Tendulkar who dominated cricket for 24 years. After he retired, a new generation took over highlighted by two modern greats Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Both batters instil fear in the eyes of the opposition whenever they are on the crease. An incident regarding the same fear was revealed by Ravichandran Ashwin on his YouTube channel.

Ashwin was giving his analysis on the last match of India against Sri Lanka and was talking about Rohit’s innings. He told his viewers about a discussion he and Virat had around 5-6 years ago about the current India captain. Talking about the incident Ashwin said that he was watching Rohit bat and asked Virat where would the bowlers target Rohit because when he is set after 15-20 overs they won’t know where to bowl to him.

Virat Kohli had a different response to the question, as he asked, “Do you know who a captain’s nightmare is at the death?” Ashwin said, “I asked, ‘Is it Dhoni?’ Kohli was like, ‘No, it is Rohit.’ When I asked him why, he said “You won’t know where to bowl.” The off-spinner while praising Rohit said, “If Rohit Sharma is batting at the end of the 16th over in a T20, where will you bowl? He has got all the shots in the book. Rohit Sharma has got all the shots, and he makes it look so effortless and easy.”

Termed as the ‘Hitman’ of Indian cricket, Rohit has earned this reputation with the mammoth scores he has under his belt and how dangerous he gets once he is set. He is the only batter in the world who has scored three double hundreds in ODI cricket. Rohit started as a middle-order batsman but never got his footing playing at the back end of the innings. But MS Dhoni’s historic decision of moving him up the order turned around his career and gave India one of the greatest openers of all time.

Ever since 2013, Rohit has been right up there with the run machine, Virat Kohli, destroying bowling attacks. In the match against Pakistan in the Asia Cup Super 4 stage, Virat became the fastest cricketer ever to reach 13,000 ODI runs. In the next match against Sri Lanka, Rohit became the second fastest batter to reach 10,000 ODI runs falling just behind Virat in the list.

Both batsmen are the backbone of the Indian batting line-up and without them, the team’s batting would look very weak. With the World Cup inching closer, India will be expecting their big guns to fire and carry them to their third title this year.

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