Rohit Sharma was bored batting at 4 or 5 in Tests: Ravi Shastri

The reason behind Rohit Sharma's promotion to open for India in Test cricket was disclosed by former India coach Ravi Shastri. He claimed that the change was brought about by Rohit's outstanding performance in the 2019 World Cup and that he used to grow bored when batting in the middle order.

Rohit Sharma's Test career was divided into two phases. The 37-year-old became so well-known in the red-ball technique in the later round that he even compared himself to some of the best players in India.

But owing to former India head coach Ravi Shastri, Rohit is mostly to blame for that period that followed the 2019 World Cup, when the star batter's record-breaking performance left the 62-year-old in disbelief.

"Batting at four or five, this guy used to get bored”- Ravi Shastri on why Rohit Sharma was asked to open in Tests

Rohit was a white-ball maverick who was successful for much of his career. He struggled to duplicate the same performance because he was a middle-order batsman in the longest format, as opposed to ODIs and T20Is. However, Shastri's realization changed his Test career.

Shastri recalled his choice to have Rohit open for India in Test cricket right after the World Cup ended when the inaugural World Test Championship got underway in 2019.

"Batting at four or five, this guy used to get bored. Then I started dwelling on the fact why is he so successful in one-day cricket? He likes to be out there early. I said, if he can go out there and do it, he has got enough time on his hands to play the quicks. He's got the shots against the quicks to take them on. The field is up, so Test cricket might be a honeymoon for him if he starts embracing it,” Shastri stated in an ICC Review episode.

Shastri claimed the idea struck him after seeing Rohit smash five hundreds en route to scoring 648 runs in nine games. There was no going back when he spoke with then-captain Virat Kohli before the West Indies tour. Nine of Rohit's twelve career runs came as an opener.

"He'd batted enough at five and six, and he wasn't here, and he wasn't there. He would get his 20s or 30s and throw it away. (I thought) let's put him under pressure and send him up (the order). And I remember telling him in the West Indies, 'We want you to open.'

This was in August 2019, if I'm not mistaken, after that World Cup. He'd had a great World Cup, so his form was very good. And he might have thought of it for a little while, but he was OK. Then he came in for the first Test match, and he opened the innings, and he got a hundred. If I'm not mistaken, he got a big 100 in that first inning, and then he didn't look back because he seemed to enjoy it.

He figured it out, and what I must say is he worked a lot on his technique because I thought his best batting was in England, where you really got to play a little differently, and especially he had to play with soft hands and could leave (the ball) a lot. And he worked on it, which was very good. So, suddenly from nowhere, he was setting up games for you,” Shastri added.

After opening for India in the first Test match and smashing a double ton in the same series, Rohit Sharma made a splash at home against the South Africans.

 He went on to score 4301 runs for India in 67 Test matches, with 2697 of those runs coming as an opener in 38 games at 42.08.  He is really the second-highest opener in WTC history in terms of runs scored.

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