Sanjay Manjrekar says Rohit Sharma’s Test average would have dropped to 30 in England

Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar believes Rohit Sharma’s Test average would have dropped to 30 in England. Rohit, India’s former Test skipper, decided to call time on his career on May 7. Rohit played 67 Tests during an 11-year career, leading in 24 of them since taking over the reins of the team from Virat Kohli in 2022. He ends his career with a total of 4301 runs, including 12 centuries.

Rohit ended his Test career with an average of 40.58. Meanwhile, Rohit’s best performance on the foreign tour came against England in 2022 when he scored 368 runs in four Test matches and ended as India’s highest run-getter on the tour.

But Rohit could only manage 31 runs in three Test matches against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2024-25 at an average of 6.20 and also stood down in the final Test against Australia at Sydney, casting a doubt on his Test future.

“Virat Kohli has got 12 hundreds. Rohit Sharma in SENA countries — just the one, against England at The Oval in 2021. And I dare say, had he gone to England, that average would have dropped into the 30s. So, when it comes to red-ball cricket I say, RoKo, stop that,” said Manjrekar in a video shared on his Instagram account.

Manjrekar said there is no comparison between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s Test numbers as the former was a superior Test batter.

“It stirred up the bee in my bonnet, which has been there for a while. It’s not so much about the statement, but the fact that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli tend to get clubbed together. We even have a term for them, RoKo. I can understand it in white-ball cricket but when it comes to red-ball cricket, there’s absolutely no comparison between the two,” he added.

Both Rohit and Virat will now only play in the 50-overs format for India.