Rohit turns up awake, alert

A few months ago, on a very popular comedy show on Indian TV, it was revealed that like trained infantrymen, Rohit Sharma could fall asleep at any time, anywhere. On the team bus on the shortest of journeys, in airport lounges with planes to catch and it was believed, if required, on a flat, concrete of a road in the height of an Indian summer.

Many dark jokes can come from that little factoid about Rohit - about him being asleep at the wheel, dropping off at the time when his cricketing gifts were being called upon to move quicker. Why, at this World Cup, itself, as the other Indian batsmen had taken charge and stomped authority, Rohit had been nodding off - his scores had read 15, 0, 57*, 7, 64 and 16. At the MCG on Thursday night, in the quarter-final of the World Cup, Rohit turned up alert, awake and switched on.

India are through to the semi-finals of the World Cup on the back of an innings that was played at a pace which for the better part was less Albert Park F1 and more Go-kart track. But the key was that it was played through to the 47th over, with a familiar, exhilarating, breathless acceleration that knocked the wind out of the Bangladesh bowlers. Rohit was the leader and the backbone of the Indian innings and on a pitch with variable pace, that made timing the ball difficult, he was able to stop the clock.

His seventh ODI century, his second at the same ground in the year, was in many ways a prototype. Since 2005, Rohit is one of five batsmen - apart from Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Sachin Tendulkar - with 5 scores of 130 or more in ODIs. In World Cup knockouts, his 137 is fourth highest after Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Viv Richards in terms of innings totals. It is heady stuff, but let's not forget the no-ball. Or rather The No-ball, when on 90, he holed out a waist-level full toss to a rushing midwicket fielder off the admirable Rubel Hossain. The no-ball call will probably be argued all the way through to the next World Cup and beyond, and in that regard Bangladesh were greviously unlucky. India were 196 for 3 in the 40th over and it is what Rohit was able to do after that reprieve, that gave India the total they required to put the match out of Bangladesh's reach.

Off the next 25 balls he faced, Rohit scored 47, and in partnership with Suresh Raina, ensured that India could jet away from 205 at the end of the 40th over to 302 at the end of innings. His strike went from a low of 60 between 51 and 70, to 180 before he was out. In his ODI centuries so far, he has scored at a strike rate of 94.6 with a boundary every 10 balls before reaching 100. Once past his century, the strike is ratcheted up to 207.33 with a boundary every three balls. Once past his century against Bangladesh, Rohit went after Rubel, taking 16 in the bowler's penultimate over.

One of those scoring shots was a six so straight, that it contained its own geometry lessons about the shortest distance between two points - the ball and where it ended up. There comes the Rohit conundrum. Watching him bat is a constant battle between the appreciation of beauty and the recognition of utility. In between his nudging and working the runs on either side of the wicket, he can produce shots that, for a few minutes, render the game situation immaterial. Even in the World Cup quarter-finals.

After reaching his 50 off 70 balls - with four fours and a six - with a single, Rohit flicked the first ball of the next over from Taskin Ahmed to midwicket, as if he were brushing down a bit of lint off his dinner jacket. As his century drew close, the crowd was chanting his name and when he crossed it, he leapt into the air and punched it, doubling over in a contortion of joy, relief and release. Until today, the biggest event in the world had been mingy pickings for a batsman blessed with an abundance of ability.

His captain believes that promoting Rohit to opener has made the difference. MS Dhoni said: "We felt he was a bit of waste of talent if he was batting at No. 6 for us because more often than not he was not getting enough chances to bat, and our top order was quite fixed. We couldn't really make him play or give him enough opportunities. He began opening for India and that was the time we decided we'll try to make him an opener, and he accepted that. He did open for us in the World T20 [in 2009], and from that point, we thought it will be good to have him as an opener because he cuts and pulls well, and he's a natural stroke-player, again, which to some extent helps if you have somebody in the top order."

His first few innings as an ODI opener, in early 2011 on the tour of South Africa, were not fruitful, after which he was not picked in the World Cup squad. They say that the disappointment of having been left out of the 2011 World Cup squad has changed his approach to the game and made him more disciplined about his training and fitness. It took him exactly two years to return to the position of opener, after which he has averaged 53 scoring 5 centuries and 13 fifties at a strike rate of 86.9.

In many ways, Rohit is his own man in the team, quiet and not given to demonstration unless he knocks off a big score or plays a key role in a big game. He does not belong to the larger, more influential core group of Dhoni, Virat Kohli, R Ashwin with Raina, Ravindra Jadeja in close accompaniment, but neither is he on the fringes. It may have much to do with the jagged edges of his performances so far, or a personality so laid back it could be what was said of David Gower: recumbent.

It was his ODI debut in Australia in 2008 that earned him the notice of hardboiled pros, with Ian Chappell marking him down as a successor to Sachin Tendulkar as India's No. 4 Test batsman. His travels since then have been long and wayward, and progress has been slow. Maybe like a high quality wine that takes a while to mature, 2015 will finally be Rohit Sharma's good year.