Rohit Sharma gives a fitting reply to his critics

A lot of eyebrows were raised when the selectors decided to retain Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan in the Test squad for the series against New Zealand. There were speculations about the likes of Gautam Gambhir and Manish Pandey making their way to the national setup.

Gautam Gambhir had plundered runs at an average of over 80 in the Duleep Trophy and Manish Pandey emerged as the leading run-getter in the quadrangular A-team series down under. With 2 tons in Duleep Trophy, young Saurashtra batsman Sheldon Jackson was also in the frame to be picked ahead of Rohit Sharma or Shikhar Dhawan, had the form been a parameter.

However, the selectors had a defensive stand as they decided to give one more chance to Dhawan and Rohit. Both the batsmen have been struggling to find their feet at the crease and needless to say, they have been struck with poor form. Amidst such situation, many strongly criticized their selection in the side.

Rohit Sharma, however, had kept quiet all this while. He took to micro-blogging site Twitter to express his feelings in a tricky one-liner that perhaps serves all his purpose. A witty Sharma wrote, “The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

Clearly, he had his bases covered. Earlier in the West Indies tour last month, skipper Virat Kohli had played Rohit Sharma ahead of Cheteshwar Pujara in the playing eleven. This had drawn a lot of criticism since Sharma failed to prove himself. Former skipper Sourav Ganguly was blunt and direct in recently quoting that the selectors will definitely not unearth any new talent of the Mumbai batsman.

Citing the fact that the series is a home series, Ganguly said it is very unlikely that Sharma could come up with something new in the series. Rohit Sharma did not react back then but his tweet surely speaks volumes about his preparation. He failed to score in the warm-up match though.

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While Sharma might still find a place in the starting eleven, Shikhar Dhawan might lose out on his place to the in-form batsman KL Rahul. It will be interesting to see whether Rohit and Dhawan make their bats do the talking or not.