quote:The paradox of Rohit Sharma is that he delights the fan, and exasperates him, for the same reason: He doesn't just 'make it look easy', for him it is easy. So easy, there is no apparent reason why he cannot just go out there and cream it every time.
There are storied strokemakers at this World Cup, but unlike almost all his tribe, Rohit eschews the use of power. Where others hit the ball, he strokes through it -- off any length, off either foot, on either side of the wicket, with the same felicity.
When he is on song, there is no visible increase of effort whether he is guiding a single, stroking the four, or lofting the straight six -- they all flow with the same easy grace.
That almost unreal talent is its own curse. Rohit can never seem to accept that sometimes, the opposition and the conditions can conspire to make things hard. He resents checks; he views them as lese-majeste and, in the off-with-his-head manner of the exalted, attempts to muscle the opposition into submission.
Ironically, it is when he forces the ball that he falls most often; when he strokes it, he reminds you of the line once used to describe the England batsman Frank Woolley: 'When you bowled to him there weren't enough fielders; when you wrote of him there weren't enough words.'
That was the difference today. Rohit had to work, as he has often; he was willing to work, as he is only rarely.
