A few months short of 26, 2013 will be a decisive year for Rohit Sharma. He can either take crucial steps towards cementing himself in the Indian team or fall away from international reckoning completely. For a player with a middling India record, Sharma has done extremely well in the Indian Premier League, or IPL, since it first started. Yet, years of performing brilliantly in the league has been negated by his frequent failures in national colours.
This set tongues wagging - that money motivated Sharma more than national pride. Was Rohit satisfied with his career? Did he have the dedication and hunger to make it to the top? Or was he satisfied with what was coming quite generously from IPL? Indeed, did he really have the fire in his belly?
Like he always does, Sharma batted superbly in the first few games of the recently concluded IPL6. Then came the decision which quite possibly could lead to his turnaround as a cricketer - regular Mumbai Indians captain Ricky Ponting decided to step down as player and captain. The Mumbai Indian management gave Sharma charge of the team.
In his first match against Kolkata, there were two kinds of pressures on Sharma: one, captaining a team with high expectations in a tough situation; and, two, his own need to perform. It was a make-or-break moment for the young cricketer because a successful captaincy would relieve the pressure, and much of it on himself.
For those who liked Sharma and have followed his career with interest, the reaction was somewhere in between - it was great that the team management had showed faith in him to lead such a pedigreed group of players, but there was this nagging question too of whether this was an unnecessary burden on a player whose main focus should be on his batting. As it turned out, by the time the curtains came down on IPL6 on Sunday, Sharma had scripted an amazing record as captain: 10 wins in 13 games. Only Shane Warne in 2008 with Rajasthan Royals had a better record as captain for a team that went on to win the IPL trophy. The Mumbai Indians team management, it would appear, had made an inspired decision.
To say that this is likely to be the peak achievement of Sharma's career would be unfair to his talent. This is despite the fact that as a national player, the past 12 months have been among the worst since he debuted for India in 2007. He was on a run of six consecutive single-digit scores in ODIs until he played that knock of 83 against England. His campaign at the Twenty20 World Cup would be as much remembered for his slow 25 off 27 balls in a must-win game against South Africa in the Super 8 as it would for his match-winning knock of 55 against England in the Group Phase.
So, it is a fair assessment that Sharma was at the crossroads at the beginning of 2013. He was not in the distant reckoning for a call-up to the Test squad and was increasingly a peripheral member of the limited-overs team. Players in his age bracket, like Virat Kohli (a year younger), Suresh Raina (a year older) and Cheteshwar Pujara (a year younger), have established their place in the national set-up. But Sharma could not be spoken of in the same breath as this trio.
Sharma's achievement as Mumbai Indians captain came at this precarious juncture. It may well be a catalyst for inculcating self-belief in him; it may be the moment when the message comes from within that if he wants to, he can achieve almost anything. This could be the moment where Sharma discovers how good he really is. It could be the achievement that makes a man out of Rohit Sharma.
And, if that happens, a scandal-smeared IPL6 might have thrown up a real positive for Indian cricket.
