Australia vs India: Rohit Sharma’s lazy demeanour almost gets him run-out in the Sydney Test

Rohit Sharma, the Indian batsman, is mostly known for his lazy elegance. Whenever he plays a shot, he doesn’t seem to put in a lot of efforts, though the ball ends up travelling a country mile. The right-hander can smash sixes with utmost ease, playing off the front foot and he’s currently one of the most feared batsmen, especially in the ODI and T20I format of the sport.

However, the same laziness almost led to his undoing during India’s third Test against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground. It happened during the 17th over of India’s second innings when they were set a target of 407 runs to chase. Fast bowler Pat Cummins bowled a good length ball and Sharma was beaten all ends up and he ended missing the ball altogether.

Rohit Sharma survives

He tried to play a shot across the line but got wrapped on the pads after which the ball went to the slip cordon. Thereafter, Rohit took things a tad lightly and came out of his crease for a split second. But Marnus Labuschagne, standing at second slip, showed a great presence of mind and aimed at the stumps at the striker’s end. And he was able to hit the stumps.

The Aussies appealed in unison and the decision was sent upstairs. But replays showed that the batsman had gotten his foot down just in the nick of time. Had he been late even by a split second, the decision would have gone in Australia’s favour.

At that point in time, the 33-year-old Rohit was batting on 18 runs with India’s score at 42 for the loss of no wickets. In the same over, the Nagpur-born Rohit creamed Cummins through the cover region for a glorious four.

Here’s the clip of the run-out appeal: –

After surviving the scare, Rohit went on to put on 71 runs for the opening wicket along with Shubman Gill. The partnership was broken when Josh Hazlewood found the latter’s outside edge. The Fazilka-born Shubman had managed 31 runs off 64 balls with the help of four fours. At the time of writing the report, Rohit got out on 52 after getting his half-century off 95 balls.