Watchful, resilient, unhurried: How Rohit Sharma adapted to frustrate England

SIMON HUGHES AT LORD'S: It took the best purveyor of swing and seam the world has ever seen to deny him a deserved place on the Lord’s honours board. But his 83 may well have a major impact on the outcome of this match

One of the starkest differences between Test and one day cricket is the way the new ball behaves, especially in England. The high-seamed red Dukes zips and zaps all over the place, especially in conditions like those at Lord’s on day one.

The flat-seamed white Kookaburra usually flies plumbline straight. As a result England field a completely different opening pair in Test cricket from the white ball version. The last opener they picked for both formats was Alastair Cook in 2014, though there was a brief flirtation with Jason Roy.

India are different. Their opening pair is frequently the same for both Tests and one day cricket. Since recovering from injury Rohit Sharma has opened against both red and white ball, and KL Rahul, his current Test opening partner, who has spent the majority of his Test career going in first, has often opened in one day cricket too. That is because there is a total orthodoxy to the way they bat regardless of the type of cricket. From a sound and side-on base, they can easily adapt to requirements.

Rohit, who today made his highest Test score outside India, has opened 141 times in one-day internationals and with an average of 57 and a strike rate of 92 has been prolific. He is proof that you don’t have to be outrageous or extreme to be successful. You just have to be able to read the pitch and the situation well and adjust your game accordingly.

Despite his incredible record in one-dayers – three double centuries (including a record-breaking 264), 24 other hundreds – and seven Test centuries before today – today’s innings of 84 must rank as one of his most special. After Joe Root sent India in, Rohit and Rahul were confronted by perfect swing and seam conditions and some incisive seam bowling from Jimmy Anderson and Ollie Robinson.

There will be criticism that they didn’t make the Indian openers play enough. The counterargument is that they left the ball brilliantly, and defended the good ones with silky footwork and soft hands. Hard as the England bowlers tried to lure a false shot with their mixtures of seam positions and angles, none came.

Rohit makes tiny adjustments to his method across formats. In one-dayers his stance is a shade open to ensure he can access the ball and he takes the bat back towards second slip. In Tests, he now stands a tad more side-on with the backlift tight to his body, consistent with his approach: watchful, resilient, unhurried.

^{Anderson bowled Rohit to give England a much-needed breakthrough}

For a naturally free-flowing player, his defence is immaculate – a good stride onto the front foot, weight transferred, playing the ball late, bat angled at 45 degrees, neat and compact when playing back.

Yet despite the demands of the conditions and Rohit quelling his naturally attacking inclinations, there were still some typically classy strokes – a couple of leg-side glides and flicks off Sam Curran, an imperious pull – well in front of square - off a 93mph delivery from Mark Wood,  a step and loft down the ground off Moeen Ali. He restrained his natural willingness to hit the ball but never missed an opportunity to score.  Everything he did was smooth and measured and utterly watchable.

He barely played a false shot and totally dominated the opening stand of 126, until, rising to the challenge, Anderson, finding a beautiful rhythm from the pavilion end, induced some indecision with one indeterminate poke outside off-stump, and then next ball an evil nip backer which wriggled past Rohit’s slightly hesitant prod.

It took the best purveyor of swing and seam the world has ever seen to deny him a deserved place on the Lord’s honours board. But that innings may well have a major impact on the outcome of this match, just as his regal hundred on the first day of the second Test in Chennai set India up for total dominance from then on.