"Modern-day greats figure out their own path": Rohit backs Virat Kohli

Team India captain Rohit Sharma turned down the concerns about Virat Kohlis struggles outside the offstump in Australia and backed him by saying modernday greats figure out their own pathSo far Virat Kohli has played the knocks of five unbeaten 100 seven 11 and three With the total of 126 runs scored with an average of 3150 the figures are not something that the stalwart had hoped before heading for the tourOn the other hand Rohit Sharma who is undergoing a rough patch is also not losing his sleep over the lack of runs and is confident of bouncing backWhen a question about Virat Kohlis struggles was posed to him with some sugarcoating the skipper added a dash of his own humour in his responseDo you say something or leave a modernday great alone the scribe askedYou only said he is a modernday great Modernday greats figure out their own path said a smiling Rohit as others broke into a peal of laughterVirat Kohli was one of the earliest to enter the nets at the Melbourne Cricket Ground MCG and Rohit was the last among the recognized batsmen to get the knockingAlso ReadI was expecting the India call because I was performing well says Ashwins replacement Tanush KotianThe India skipper played just two shots in the last 20 minutes and left everything else as he tried to curb his natural instinct to push forwardThe desperation to control his conditioned reflex of moving hands towards the fourth stump delivery was evidentHarshit is jagah se jaa rahi hai the ball is landing here he pointed out at an imaginary fourth stump line while trying to know from the young pacer about the line which looked just around six inches outside offstump This line has been Kohlis Achilles Heel in the ongoing tourWhen Prasidh Krishna came on he was told to bowl on the channel as he wanted to leave balls Prasidh dug one short and he just about defended Then the lanky Karnataka man hit the channel and the batter withdrew his willow in the nick of timeThe 500odd people present inside would let out a collective sigh They made noise and once Kohli was also seen telling them to keep quiet and let him concentrateWhen Rohit batted he was heard telling throwdown specialist Raghavendra Tappa sahi pakadna padega get the length right He also got beaten by a throw that reared from lengthRohit bhai pull maaro naa play the pull shot yelled one of the demanding young fans from outside Rohit just left the next deliveryWith the chatter about his form gaining decibels and rumours about an imminent retirement post Sydney gaining traction Rohits answers about himself were shortWhen someone has one double digit score in five innings he wants to be left alone but then commitments needed to be honouredAsked about his batting position he was borderline irritatedLets not worry about that I think who bats where we should be discussing that within ourselves and I shouldnt be answering this question in every press conference the skipper said trying to hold his composureAt the onset he informed that his knee which was hurt while batting on an old practice track was fine Then next question was a flighted query on where he stood with regards to his batting formAfter last Test in Brisbane we had two sessions What could have possibly changed in two days he countered with a wry smileAs usual he didnt give away anything about whether playing two spinners while factoring in the Melbourne heat was feasible or notThe inimitable Rohit was back lacing everything with a bit of humour when asked what led to the selection of Tanush Kotian over Kuldeep YadavWell Kuldeep didnt have visa he smiled before informing that the wrist spinner is still not hundred percent fitAxar couldnt travel as he has had a baby I am not saying Tanush is bad but he is here more as a cover he saidThe fivematch series is levelled at 11 with all to play for in the remaining two matches in Melbourne and SydneyWith PTI Inputs