Irreverent, shameful tweet; arrogant insistence !! Rohit stands tall !!!!

 

ICC Champions Trophy has moved to the next level – the Semis.  Now India will play Australia, New Zealand plays South Africa.  Capt. Rohit Sharma, has said that India does not enjoy any  significant advantage at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium -  "We don't know which pitch will be used in the semi-final, but whatever it is, we will have to adapt and see how it goes. And it's not our home either - this is Dubai. We don't play so many matches here, it's new for us as well."

 

This tournament, Rohit Sharma has marshaled his resources so well that the absence of Jasprit Bumrah has not been felt.  His acumen was so good that against Kiwis, India played 4 spinners, a rare luxury in ODI. 

Perhaps Indian wins do not go well with some even within India !!!!!  A social media post by Congress spokesperson Shama Mohamed on Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma’s body weight triggered a controversy, with people calling it body shaming and totally unwarranted.  The mood clearly is  “leave sportspersons alone”. 

Her X handle reads :  Dentist, National Spokesperson-Indian National Congress- AICC.  In her now-deleted post, Ms. Mohamed had said that the Indian captain is “fat for a sportsman.”. “Need to lose weight! And of course the most unimpressive Captain India has ever had!” she wrote. 

Netizens were quick to comment -  It seems Shama Mohamed’s criticism of Rohit Sharma stems more from her disappointment over Pakistan and Bangladesh’s elimination from the Champions Trophy 2025 than anything else. India, led by Rohit, handed both teams decisive defeats—Pakistan by 6 wickets and Bangladesh by 6 wickets in the group stage—knocking them out of the tournament. Her remarks about Rohit’s fitness and captaincy could be a reflection of that frustration, especially given his key role in orchestrating those victories and leading India to the semi-finals. The sting of seeing her favored teams exit early might just be the real fuel behind her sharp words. 

Replying to a post praising Mr. Sharma, Ms. Mohamed asked what was so world class about the current captain when compared to his predecessors Saurav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, M. S. Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri and the rest. 

Reprimanding Ms. Mohamed for her comments, the Congress urged her to delete the post on the Indian cricket team captain. Taking to X, Pawan Khera, who heads the party’s media and publicity wing, said Ms. Mohamed’s view does not reflect the party’s position. “The Indian National Congress holds the contributions of sporting icons in the highest regard and does not endorse any statements that undermine their legacy,” Mr. Khera said. 

“The Congress, which has lost over 90 elections under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, is now body-shaming the Indian cricket captain, at a time when our national team is in pursuit of the Champions Trophy! This is a premeditated put down to undermine the team’s morale at a crucial time. Their disdain for our icons is apparent. They resent a self confident India,” said Amit Malviya, the BJP IT Cell in-charge, on X. 

Supporting Ms. Mohamed, veteran Trinamool Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Sougata Roy told a news agency, “Rohit Sharma hit a century sometime back but otherwise, he gets out at 2, 5, 10, 20 runs. He should neither get a place in the team nor be the captain. What the Congress leader said is absolutely correct”. Even after such terrific backlash, Ms. Mohamed struck a defiant note and said that she was entitled to her views in a democracy. “It was a generic tweet about the fitness of a sportsperson. It was not body-shaming. I always believed a sportsperson should be fit, and I felt he was a bit overweight, so I just tweeted about that. I have been attacked for no reason,” she said. 

Now read something on Cricket records and that would make one understand the fallacy of the tweet; ignorance of its maker or the arrogance  & politics behind such body shaming !!  

A century in Cricket  - when I started watching Cricket in mid 1970s, Sunil Gavaskar would grind the bowlers and make one with exquisite straight drives; but Century was nowhere in sight -   after almost a decade of initiation into ODI, came the first century in ODI, that epic 175 against Zimbabwe. 

Then came one by Krish Srikkanth, Mohinder Amarnath, Ravi Shastri … .. centuries were rare but now Virat Kohli has 51; Sachin Tendulkar 49; Rohit Sharma 32; Sourav Ganguly 22;  Shikhar Dhawan 17; Virender Sehwag 15; Yuvraj Singh 14; Rahul Dravid 12 & Gautam Gambhir 11 (the ones above 10)

 

Those of us who watched in Nov 2013, Rohit’s  superb innings against Australia – 209 in the 7th ODI at Bangalore would remember that it was distinctly separable phases……… first 50 runs – 71 balls (SR 70.42) Next 50 runs – 43 balls (SR 116.28) Next 109 runs- 44 balls (SR 247.72) ~ so it was not speed all the time and there was a time when he was farming much of strike, but Dhawan was scoring freely.  Those  209 runs (the second highest ODI score ever at that time) placed him in a new sphere  16 sixes (a world record), 12 fours (he hit more sixes than fours), 9 twos, 47 singles, 74 dot balls.  

13th Nov 14 was destined to be different for those who watched at Kolkatta and for the player himself.   Kohli won the toss, decided to bat - Angelo Mathews bowled the second over -   it was 2;0;0;0;0;0 – certainly no indicator of what were to happen. The carnage ! – the  27-year-old was caught at long-off from the final ball of the innings, looking for the boundary that would have levelled the List A record of 268, set by Ali Brown of Surrey against Glamorgan in 2002.  Before 2010, no batsman had passed 200 in 2,961 previous one-day internationals, today it  is the fourth 200 in four years, all of which have been made by India batsmen in India.  

It was  Rohit Sharma playing an International match in  10-weeks began with a touch of nerves. He was even kept scoreless in one Angelo Mathews maiden. By the end of the innings, there was no shot he had not played. No part of the ground he had not exploited. No bowler who escaped his brutality. Rohit amassed 45 more runs than any ODI batsman had ever managed in an innings, finishing on 264 from 173 balls when he was finally caught off the last ball of the innings.   

Rohit's innings was so outrageous that the first 100 runs, which were hit at a run-a-ball, seemed achingly humdrum in comparison to the 164 that followed!!  There were many incredible shots, from among his 33 fours and nine sixes, but the most gobsmacking was the six off Kulasekara at the end of the 48th over, when he walked across to off stump, took a half volley from about a foot and half away from him and flicked it high over the midwicket boundary. It was the kind of shot, and innings, that seemed in open defiance of physics.  

The highest individual score had progressed – for sometime it was Glen Turner’s 171 made in 1st WC; then Kapil Dev made 175 n.o in 1983 WC; Richards made 189; Saeed Anwar 194 at Chepauk  ….. Sachin first breached 200; Sehwag upstaged him………..  .  

Rohit scored ODI double-hundreds for fun- 3 of them, won six IPLs in the first 15 editions of the tournament, scored five hundreds at the 2019 ODI World Cup, and when he finally got to open in Tests in 2019, three quick hundreds in his first series in the role, one of them a double.  

In 67 tests he has 4301 runs; highest 212; Avg 40.57 – 12 100s; T20s 159 matches 4231 runs; 121* highest; 5 tons & in ODIs 271 matches 11064 runs; 264 highest – 32 tons …. .. .. and most important statistics not to be missed is 88/340/205 – the sixers he has hit in Tests / ODI & T20I.  

I vividly remember this guy who made his debut against England in Dec 1984 – the bowling lineup missing Kapil Dev read, Chetan Sharma, Manoj Prabhakar, Ravi Shastri, Roger Binny and Rajinder Sing Ghai. A couple of decades ago, was present at Chepauk stadium eagerly watching the Indian Cricketers train .. .. Dilip Vengsarkar came out did a little bit of stretch near the pavilion barriers and was standing with hands on hips [he perhaps had the easiest of stance at crease and made runs with elan]; Sunil Gavaskar walked around talking to people and practicing mock drives; spinners were rotating their arms – Kapil Dev captured attraction with his exercise drills, then went running around the ground as hundreds of us cheered him as he got closer – alongside Rajinder Singh Ghai ran so easily and tirelessly for 6 or 7 rounds of the stadium – we all spoke about his attitude and stamina – he was to play in only 6 one dayers making a solitary run and 3 wickets in all. 

For sometime, there was so much of talk about Yo-Yo test, the fitness bearrier.  At that time a  former member of the Indian coaching staff said the team management should keep in mind that aerobic endurance can’t be the only criterion for selection. “The yo-yo test can’t be the only criterion to test a cricketer’s fitness. It’s a skill-based sport. There’s so much mental stamina that’s required too,” he said, adding that many of the past legends would have failed the test.  True can one imagine putting the likes of Erapalli Prasanna, Bishan Bedi, Gundappa Viswanath, Vengsarkar, Ashok Malhotra and more going through this – is it not he talent that is material ?

 

Judge the players by their talent and how they have performed against International teams ~ not merely by how fit they look !! – here is a fit photo of Umesh Yadav and Hardik Pandya, that was circulating a few years ago.  

Most inappropriate by that Congress spokesperson and bad that she insist that she is entitled to her opinion.  Shame.

 
Regards – S Sampathkumar
3.3.2025