India cricket team captain Rohit Sharma’s childhood coach revealed how his mistake could have nearly cost the country one of the finest batters. One of the best white-ball batters across the world, the Hitman started his cricketing career as a 12-year-old as a bowler initially before Dinesh Lad realized that he was born to be a destructive batter. Years later, Rohit now has 11168 runs in ODIs and 4231 runs in T20Is to his name.
How Rohit Sharma nearly missed the bus on being a batter
In a podcast with Gaurav Manglani, Rohit’s childhood coach revealed that he had first noticed the star as a bowler when he was 12-years-old. Lad said that after convincing Sharma’s uncle to make him join his academy, he had made the young boy only bowl until he was 14 years old. However, Rohit’s childhood coach revealed that the turning point came when he saw the 14-year-old batting one fine day and that changed everything. Lad admitted that it was his mistake that he did not allow Sharma to bat earlier.
“One day, while entering the school, I saw a boy knocking (batting). From outside, I saw the bat was coming very straight and good. I didn’t know it was Rohit at first. When I went inside, I asked him if he was batting. He said yes, sir. Then I gave him some batting in the nets at number six or seven. Before that, I had never given him batting practice. That was my mistake,” Lad admitted.
Rohit made his T20I and ODI debut as early as 2007. Initially, he used to bat down the order before he was promoted as the opener years later. The rest, as people say, is history as he went on to become one of India’s finest openers across all formats of the game.
“He batted well. In a match, he went in at number seven and scored 40 runs — a very good 40. The way he was batting, I felt he had a very good talent for batting. A thought came to my mind: it would be good to make him open. He was very happy when I asked, and scored 140 runs as an opener. That’s when I knew he should focus more on batting,” Lad added.
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