Rohit Sharma, once a textbook cricketer, now a ‘Book Cricketer’

In the time it takes to decide which beer to drink at a brewery and before the chosen pint is plonked at your table, Rohit Sharmahad walked off with a hundred. Crash, Bang, Wallop — thank you, Sri Lanka, come again! In Delhi, they needed masks to stave off pollution; in Indore, they needed them to hold the jaws together as Rohit and KL Rahul led India to a rollicking 88-run win. In the process, the hosts also pocketed the three-match T20I series with a match to spare.

It was a one hell of a crazy night-out: fans were left punch drunk on sixes, with fours munched down as appetisers. Rohit swished, flayed, carved, pulled, tonked, scooped, and sliced for himself a piece of cricket history when he equaled David Miller’s 35-ball effort for the quickest T20 international hundred. But mayhem had seldom been to made to look so blood-free and without any apparent malice.

When you catch up on the sixes package, essentially the innings itself, look out for a six – his first, in the fifth over of the game. That said everything that needs to be said about this knock. Not that it was a sensational hit, or even the best-timed six of the evening, but it encapsulated the essence of Rohit’s limited-overs’ prowess, which is mindboggling

The ball from Pradeep rose from short of a length and there was no jerky movement from Rohit — be it in the bat swing, or his footwork, or his head. He stood still – these days Rohit has made it an art form. Nothing twitches. The hands flow, the bat moves up and swings down, the hip swivels, and he just creams through the line.

As if he was hitting a stationary ball. As if all he had to do was to just align his body, stay still, get the bat swinging down merrily. It’s the technique that serves him so well in limited-overs, and on flat tracks, but hampers him on tracks with more spice.

He has embraced minimalism. If the length or the line demands it, he flexes his upper body — stretches it, leans forward, arches back, reaches across, and bends his knees to do the needful. Rest, his still head and the flowing hands take care.

A few decades ago, the Pakistani batsman Majid Khan challenged his county team-mates to an exercise: that he would play them without moving his feet, just the bent-knee, and upper-body stretches would do. And he did exactly that. Rohit does it now to jaw-dropping effect.

Rahul extends Raina-ism

It wasn’t a one-way street as KL Rahul too came up with a blitz of his own. His batsmanship is so compact that the fury he produces can stun people who haven’t watched him a lot. If you had watched him as a teenager, you would have thought he would turn out to be a traditionalist, like Rahul Dravid. And this is where perhaps Suresh Raina needs to be given credit. Hold the horses, here comes the explanation.

Of all the modern-day Indian batsmen, it was Raina who perfected the arm-extension after the bat makes impact with the ball. Especially for his six over covers off length deliveries. He would lean across, and not just punch but extend his forearm fully while following-through. If you cut out that last-instant post-impact extension, the shot would seem just like an normal traditional punch. But it’s that final explosive extension that would send the ball soaring up and over. Traditional big hitters don’t need it. They can just flex the muscles or have golf-like swings. The compact ones need this extra wings to make the ball fly.

Rahul does it really well these days, and turned it on again against the Sri Lankans. He still stays compact, holds his shape, moves into line of the ball — so far, it’s just another traditionalist in action. In Test cricket, he can push the ball to say mid-off. In T20s, the extra gear kicks in late. And the ball goes up and over.

So stunned were the Sri Lankans that once, in the 19th over, Gunaratne at deep square leg didn’t even put his hand up to catch the ball. It went for a six. It took a diving effort from the ’keeper next ball to prevent Rahul from becoming the second Indian centurion of the night.

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