"Should I open man? What's going on?" - Rohit Sharma's stunning revelation on BGT 2024-25 incident amid IPL 2025

Team India skipper Rohit Sharma recalled facing a dilemma about his batting position during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy down under. Rohit missed the opening Test at Perth to attend the birth of his second child in India.

Despite Rohit's absence, India crushed Australia by a massive 295 runs, thanks to a sensational double-century opening stand from KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal in the second innings. To keep the opening partnership intact, Rohit let go of his position at the top of the order and batted at No.6 in the second Test at Adelaide.

However, he scored only nine runs across the two innings as India suffered a ten-wicket defeat.

In a conversation with former Australian batter Michael Clarke on the 'Beyond23 Cricket Podcast' amid the IPL 2025 season, Rohit recalled asking himself tough questions after the Adelaide Test.

"When I got to Australia, things were slightly different. When I saw KL Rahul and Jaiswal bat in the first Test with a newborn in my hand, I loved it. So, I said Why do we need to change that. This is the series we want to win desperately to qualify for the World Test Championship. But in Adelaide, I didn’t have a great game. Then I went back to my room and I thought, ‘Should I open man? What’s going on?’. Then I decided not to change after one game," said Rohit [19:05].

He continued:

"Then, when we got to Melbourne, we changed our mind and I went back to open the innings. And the last Test match in Sydney, I had to be honest to myself that I was hitting he ball. I didn’t want to put myself there only because we had a lot of the other batters struggling as well. And we somehow wanted Gill to play because he is such a good player. So I spoke to the coach and the selector who was on the tour as well and they kind of agreed and not agreed."

Rohit endured another poor outing at No.6 in the third Test at Brisbane, scoring a 27-ball 10 in India's lone innings. His return to the top in the fourth Test in Melbourne did not help, as he managed only 12 runs across the two innings.

Finally, Rohit dropped himself for the series finale in Sydney after scoring only 31 runs at an average of 6.20 in three Tests.

"Came from the setbacks I had in my batting" - Rohit Sharma on his captaincy growth

Rohit Sharma believes the growth in his captaincy comes from the setbacks he faced with the bat early in his career. Despite the obvious talent, Rohit struggled for consistency at the beginning of his international career.

The 37-year-old is among India's most successful all-format captains, with 103 wins in 142 matches. Rohit recently helped India win the 2025 Champions Trophy - his second ICC title as captain.

"I’ve learned along the way (Captaincy). It actually came from the setbacks I had in my batting. I never spoke to too many people about my game. So, I had to figure out myself if I had a failure and so I had to watch the TV and replays to see what I did wrong," said Rohit (Via afromentioned source) [10:48].

He added:

"While doing that, I got to learn so many things about bowlers’ strategies and how they are setting me up. It made me understand the other side of it – ‘This is how you captain, this is how you lead a team and this is what you ask the bowlers to do’. T20 is very hard to captain only because of the pace of the game. There is no time to recover, you have one bad over and suddenly the momentum is with the opposition."

Rohit is playing for the Mumbai Indians (MI) in IPL 2025. He formerly captained the franchise to five IPL titles from 2013 to 2023.