It felt almost like 2008 again. Back then a young Rohit Sharma walked in at the SCG and helped Sachin Tendulkar hunt down 240. Seventeen years on, the same ground staged what might be Rohit and Virat Kohli’s final act together in Australia: an unbroken 168-run stand that secured a comfortable chase and a 2-1 series win.
The crowd was overwhelmingly Indian. At one point you could hardly hear the bowlers’ calls over the chants of “Rohit, Rohit” and “Kohli, Kohli”. Yet there was very little fuss out in the middle—two senior pros ticking along at five an over, waiting for the loose ball, chatting between overs, almost studious in their calm.
Rohit’s 33rd one-day hundred, struck at more than a run a ball, earned him both player-of-the-match and player-of-the-series awards. Afterwards he reflected on a long relationship with Australian pitches and crowds. “I’ve always loved coming here,” he told the host broadcaster. “I enjoy playing cricket here in Australia. Fond memories of 2008, and nice way to finish, getting that knock and getting that win as well. I don’t know if we’ll be coming back to Australia, but it was fun all these years that we played here. A lot of good memories, bad memories, but all in all, I’ll take the cricket that I played here.”
Pressed on whether the “two old dogs still had sting in the tail”, he laughed. “Looks like it, yes,” adding that both he and Kohli still relish every opportunity despite featuring only in ODIs these days.
Kohli, coming off back-to-back ducks—something that had never happened to him before in the format—looked scratchy for ten balls, then rediscovered his method to finish unbeaten on 78. When asked if the relief was palpable, he was disarmingly honest. “Good to be out of the pond, honestly,” he said as the SCG rose. “You’ve scored so many runs in international cricket, but then the game shows you everything. Even at this stage, 37 and not many days old and still can feel like I don’t know how to get a run. I mean this game is amazing.
“That’s why we love batting, we love batsmanship, and it’s so challenging when it’s not going your way and just to find your rhythm again. Go out there, having a situation to play in always is something that always brings out the best in me. And yeah, when Rohit’s already batting there, it’s pretty easy to kind of keep rotating strike. We understand each other’s game pretty well. So again, really good to have a big partnership and another match-finishing partnership for us.”
Statisticians had a busy evening. The stand lifted their combined tally to 5,483 ODI partnership runs, moving them past Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan into fourth on the all-time list. Only three pairs have ever produced more: Sachin Tendulkar-Sourav Ganguly, Mahela Jayawardene-Sangakkara, and Rohit-Shikhar Dhawan. Add another column to the spreadsheet.
Beyond numbers, India’s selectors will be satisfied that two players now limited to one format can still switch straight on. The next 50-over World Cup is two years away in South Africa, and head coach Rahul Dravid—quietly observing from the dressing-room balcony—will know that in a youthful squad such experience can’t be bought.
Former opener Aakash Chopra, speaking on television afterwards, put it neatly: “They keep adding confidence to the changing room. When the big names score, the youngsters believe they can too.” No arguments on that front.
Australia will regret letting India off the hook in the field: a mis-judged catch at deep square leg on 12 gave Rohit his life, and a regulation stumping chance went begging when Kohli was on 26. The hosts had begun brightly, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins extracting just enough with the new ball, but once the shine disappeared so did any real control.
In truth, the match was decided an hour before the winning hit. A target of 255 was at least 30 short on a decent surface, as even home captain Steven Smith admitted. “We were probably one wicket away from making things interesting,” he said, “but class showed.”
Where next for Rohit and Kohli? Both insist they will judge it series by series. For now they fly home with another trophy and, perhaps more importantly, renewed certainty that the old engine still turns over just fine.
A decade and a half after that first SCG glimpse, Rohit waved his bat to every corner of the ground. Kohli clapped, then flicked sweat off his helmet before walking over to embrace his mate. No theatrics, just two blokes who still love batting.
