What does the Cuttack century mean for Rohit Sharma the captain?

A day after Rohit Sharma found himself back among the runs with a characteristic century at Cuttack, the refrain among the Indian cricket fraternity is about how he has proved his critics wrong. Give it a day, and if he fails to get a decent score in the final ODI at Ahmedabad, the mood could soon change to: was it a flash in the pan?

This is often the biggest problem with the so-called superstar culture which rules the psyche of Indian cricket fans, and in the current context, between the two camps swearing loyalty to the Big Two. Scratching beneath the surface of the 'Hitman’s' 32nd century in ODIs, one finds a welcome augury: the beleaguered Indian captain will be in the right frame of mind when he steps out to lead the team in the ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai in a little over a week.

Much as one would expect from a 37-year-old elder statesman of the game, Rohit refrained from any overt celebrations and said it was just a good day in the office. “It was good, really enjoyed being out there, scoring some runs for the team. Important game, series on the line. I broke it into pieces about how I wanted to bat. It’s a format that is longer than T20 cricket and a lot shorter than Tests. Still you need to break it down, assess and bat according to the situation. I wanted to stay focused and bat as deep as possible,” he said at the post-match presentation after India ensured they would be walking away with the ODI series too after the T20I romp.

The format and level of challenge is like chalk-and-cheese, but a captain in form makes a lot of difference in the dressing room, and this is where the leader in Rohit will be in a much better frame of mind in a tournament of shorter duration but with little margin for error.

The difference was palpable during the disastrous Test series Down Under, where Rohit started with a handicap of not being there from the first ball, then a confidence crisis pulling him apart on whether to stick to his opening spot or go down the order and finally, the shoddy manner in which his pullout from the Sydney Test was handled.

The Champions Trophy, in conditions which are strikingly similar to India (the dew being critical), will be a different cup of tea for the man who has amassed a lion’s share of his 15,404 runs as an opener in international cricket in this format.

Cricket buffs, meanwhile, can find a happy coincidence that it was a tactical move by then captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to pair Rohit with Shikhar Dhawan at the top of the batting order in the 2013 Champions Trophy in England, which saw the birth of one of the most successful white-ball opening combinations ever for India.

Looking at the bigger picture, Rohit getting runs is just like ticking one more box for the team management, though the Virat Kohli conundrum remains to be solved. The batting line-up looks sorted, with Rohit and his new vice-captain Shubman Gill finding his mojo at the top and Kohli, Shreyas Iyer and K.L. Rahul being the ideal occupants at numbers three to five. The idea of sending Axar Patel ahead of Rahul, as witnessed in the first two ODIs, is a quirky one and reflects coach Gautam Gambhir’s fascination for a left-right combination.

Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja are signed and sealed as the two allrounders with veteran Mohammed Shami all but set to lead the pace attack with either newcomer Harshit Rana or left-armer Arshdeep Singh. The likelihood of Jasprit Bumrah eventually making the cut looks slim, though one has to wait until 11 February to find out about the BCCI medical team’s final call.

It will also be D-day to find out if Varun Chakravarthy is making the cut!