Rohit asked ‘Are you disappointed?’ I said ‘Can’t you tell that from my face?’: India batter on missing Australia tour

Since Rohit Sharma took over as captain of the Indian team, he has performed the duties of a captain with grit and determination. Succeeding a great like Virat Kohli was never going to be a walk in the park and very easily, Rohit could have been compared with his predecessor. But the veteran Indian batter took up the responsibility with confidence and the result is out there for everyone to see. From November last year, when Rohit took over as India’s permanent captain (in white-ball cricket), the team hasn’t lost a single match under him, having routed New Zealand, West Indies and Sri Lanka along the way.

Rohit managed to smoothly ease into the role of India captain, and of course, a lot of it had to do with the fact that he is IPL’s most successful skipper having led Mumbai Indians to a record five titles. It was during his eight-year-long tenure as MI captain that Rohit developed a sharp captaincy acumen, which he has successfully taken forward with the Indian team. Even at MI, Rohit was always there for his teammates, an example of which has been shared by Suryakumar Yadav. As everyone is aware, Suryakumar had a fantastic IPL 2020, where he scored 480 runs, and was naturally expecting a call-up for the tour of Australia that lied ahead. Surprisingly, Suryakumar missed making it to any of the limited-overs squad, which left him disappointed, and it was there that Rohit’s words of encouragement helped him.

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“It was my birthday in 2020 and Rohit told me ‘Many happy returns of the day. Keep working hard. You are not far from the India cap’. He was always behind me, pushing me ‘Keep making runs’. If you’re scoring, score again in the next game and the one after that also. Keep knocking that door and if it doesn’t open, break it down. So he was completely behind me,” Suryakumar told actor, television and cricket presenter Gaurav Kapur on his YouTube Show ‘Breakfast with Champions’.

“The way the IPL started and the way it was going, then 2-3 squads for a tour were announced and I wasn’t in them. Everyone around me was saying I will be selected, but when I wasn’t, I was like ‘How did it happen? Everything was going well in the last 2 years’. You wonder what else you should do? Rohit bhai asked me ‘Are you disappointed? I said ‘Can’t you tell that from my face? I’m sure you can sense it’.”

Suryakumar could have either chosen to stay deflated or move on, before eventually deciding on the latter. After being low on confidence for a few days, Suryakumar revealed how Rohit, along with a couple more legends helped him leave behind the disappointment and come out of the setback stronger. As it turns out, Suryakumar would make his India debut a few months later and become an unmissable part of the limited-overs squads.

“On match day, him, Zaheer Khan and Mahela Jayawardene said, ‘I think this is the perfect opportunity for you to show everyone what you’ve got’. I said ‘okay’, but still there was a lot going on in my head. Luckily, we fielded first and the rush of blood and adrenaline gradually lessened. I wasn’t thinking much, everything was flowing. The target and situation also presented itself. I said ‘Now is the time. If I score now, everything will fall in place.’ The last 5 days that I had wasted by missing training, skipping gym session, I can wipe the slate clean in this game and no matter what, I have to win it for my team,” he added.