Rohit rekindles Brabourne love affair

“Your Excellency, which would you prefer; to accept from sportsmen, money for your government, or immortality for yourself?”

More than 80 years ago, Anthony de Mello offered Lord Brabourne a choice, and the Governor's answer was immortality. The result - the Brabourne stadium.

For the child of the erstwhile state Lord Brabourne once governed, Rohit Sharma wasn't ever offered immortality, but made it chase him, stamping his name, over the years, in the annals of ODI cricket as a modern-day plunderer of bowling attacks.

He added another mini-chapter on Monday, the latest being his rekindled love for Brabourne.

The CCI has been shunned as a one-day venue for over a decade now, but for Rohit Sharma, the ground reads like the back of his hand. Over 10 years back right here, he scored India's first ever T20 century, and two years later, achieved the small feat of a Ranji triple hundred.

"I've grown up playing cricket in Mumbai and more so in CCI. I have played a lot of cricket here. I do understand the pace and bounce here. You just pierce the field and there is value for money," Rohit remarked after.

In a series that has emerged as Kohli's record-busting exercise, Rohit has two centuries in four ODIs. Honestly, it is hard to figure who is a better boundary hitter between the two.

In the first half of his knock, the Windies bowlers kept feeding him outside off, and he cut and drove without any fuss. He played down the 'V' much less than he usually does.

For anything that was offered full outside the off, Rohit would lazily lean out and glaze it through the covers. Overcompensating for it, Holder & co. dropped their lengths short on occasion, and he instinctively smeared it past cover or hammered it away to midwicket.

Ambati Rayudu laboured first and partied later, but Rohit was in high spirits all along - seldom does he lose his tempo once he starts assembling an ODI knock, and he refused to drop anchor this time too, finding boundaries in merriment and collecting his 21st ODI ton.

"The pitch is good and I said to myself that I won't get out playing an extravagant shot. Like I said, value for the shots is always there for the taking at the CCI".

For the first half of his innings, Rohit did not need to go aerial, he gleefully kept playing the ball late off the backfoot, past backward point or cover. As he kept tormenting the Windies, their lengths (and shoulders) began dropping, and he kept obliging.

At one point, it seemed as if Rohit could play the front foot pull stroke with a toothpick if he had to. Such was the efficiency of the stroke. Even good length deliveries on the body were being lapped away through square leg. Boy, he knew the field well, just like he knew the dimensions of the ground itself.

Against spinners Ashley Nurse and Fabien Allen, he had no problems going back and forth in his crease, gauging the pace of the surface in a chanceless display of ODI batsmanship.

There wasn't a single boundary down the ground throughout the entire 162-run knock.

After his hundred, he decided to free his play further - delectable cuts started to mingle with ruthless thwacks. But the form of his stance never disappeared. Even in the 41st over, a cover drive off Kemar Roach was just as exquisite as it looked in the fifth over. The ease is disconcerting sometimes.

He is recorded to have a strike-rate of over 170 after reaching the three-figure mark - the same acceleration that has seen him smack three double hundreds. Even low full-tosses, tricky deliveries to face at the death, met the full face of the bat and ran past the fielders.

Around his 150, he decided to toy with Holder's herd of bowlers. With every ridiculous stroke, the anticipation of a fourth double intensified. A wayward delivery, and a loose slash, cut short the knock. It's funny how a 162-run knock in ODIs seems truncated. Then again, it's Rohit Sharma.

Almost exactly ten years ago, playing with the likes of Amol Muzumdar and Wasim Jaffer, a 21-year-old Rohit hit a second-innings century for Mumbai. The innings kickstarted the side's Ranji campaign that eventually ended in a title.

He had played fewer than 30 ODIs then, and Virat Kohli's international career was barely two months old. The venue was Brabourne.

Ten years later, the ground stays the same, but the Rohit legacy continues to blossom.