Rohit Sharma's glorious century against Pakistan was a love letter to India fans

SAM MORSHEAD AT OLD TRAFFORD: Sharma's bat talks, the crowd listen and then they respond. Loudly, lovingly, over and over again. That famous, elegant pull. The on drive that makes you hum. Shot after shot that says: "All that I am is yours"

Rohit Sharma rises off the ground, back arched, like a high jumper going for a new personal best.

His wrists twist quickly, sweeping his bat through the air as if he is signing his name with a sparkler in the dark.

A brief moment of quiet from 20,000 Indians inside Old Trafford, and then...

Crack.

Four.

Delirium.

It is the latest in a series of love letters between Sharma and the stands, a private back-and-forth played out on the biggest stage in cricket, to the sport’s biggest audience.

Sharma’s bat talks, the crowd listen and then they respond. Loudly, lovingly, over and over again.

That famous, elegant pull. A hard-handed sweep. The on drive that makes you hum.

Shot after shot that says: “All that I am is yours”.

This was a supreme opener at the peak of his powers, in control and enjoying every moment.

Over the course of 39 overs at the wicket, Sharma dismantled a laboured attack, respecting the good balls and obliterating the bad. One upper cut for six off Hasan Ali was quite outrageous, the sort of strokeplay which really ought to come plastered in explicit content warnings.

Pakistan did not always help themselves. Fakhar Zaman wasted a wonderful opportunity to run Sharma out on 35, while more than half the deliveries they bowled at him were short - a curious tactic to a man who was born to play off the back foot - and their slovenly groundwork often allowed twos where there should have only been singles.

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But that should not detract from the majesty of India’s No.1 in full flight.

A week or so previously, he had been in similar form against South Africa, albeit on a trickier pitch in Southampton and against a seam arsenal which offered much more than Pakistan’s.

Virat Kohli regarded that century as Sharma’s best in one-day international cricket - quite a statement considering the man has three double-hundreds, including the world-record score - and no doubt Kohli’s comment came somewhat in the heat of the moment, but this innings will certainly give the India captain pause to think again.

Whereas at the Hampshire Bowl, Sharma had to work particularly hard for his runs in a modest chase - his 122 coming from 144 balls - here his first fifty arrived off 34 and his innings as a whole took up just 113, bouncing along quickly and tidily, as if to the pace being set by drummers in the stands.

He judged line and length as if equipped with in-built Hawkeye, and was not hoodwinked into prodding around outside his off stump by Mohammad Amir - Pakistan’s only genuinely dangerous option with the ball in the early overs.

By the time he eventually flopped a miscued ramp into the waiting hands of Wahab Riaz at fine leg, he had not only sucked the life out of Pakistan, he had washed out their empty shells and sent them off for recycling.

And how the Indian supporters loved every second, every twinkle-toed hook and hold-the-pose push down the ground.

Sharma was furious with himself as he waded towards the dressing rooms at the end of his innings. Maybe he was playing the dismissal over again in his mind, maybe he felt he had left far too much unsaid. Regardless, he almost forgot to acknowledge the adulation of the fans.

And then, as he reached the boundary rope, he remembered.

The slightest raise of his bat.

PS, I love you.

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