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India batter Rohit Sharma recently shocked the cricketing world by announcing his retirement from the longest format. It was expected that Rohit would be stripped off captaincy for the five-match Test series against England in June, however not many could have guessed that the 37-year-old would announce his retirement before the important assignement.
The announcement came following Rohit's highly disappointing show with the bat in the Border-Gavaskar series where he only managed to score 31 runs in five innings. Though it will be quite a difficult task for the BCCI to find Rohit's replacement in Tests, former South Africa cricketer Daryll Cullinan believes that India won't be missing the batter much in the format.
"Rohit's retirement was probably long overdue in terms of test cricket away from India. Let's be honest about it," Cullinan told Hindustan Times.
"He hasn't really been the player that he throughout his career has been at home and we saw reluctance from him in recent Australian series to really take it on and lead from the front. So I don't see that as being a loss for India at all," Cullinan added.
Rohit Sharma's poor performance in Test cricket
It wasn't just the series against Australia where Rohit gave poor batting performances as he wasn't able to score much in the previous Test series against New Zealand either.
In the six innings that he played against the Black Caps, Rohit could only put up a total of 91 runs, with his highest individual score being 52. He was among the weakest performers in the series as India suffered a 0-3 whitewash at home.
Despite his severely poor form in the last couple of Test series, Rohit's retirement from the format has left a big void in the Indian team and it needs to be filled quickly. The upcoming England series is a perfect opportunity for the young guns to make their mark and cement their place in the team which will now be without two of their senior-most players, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
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