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Outstanding effort: Vengsarkar, Amre

G. Viswanath

Mumbai: The chairman of the national selection committee Dilip Vengsarkar expressed happiness at Rohit Sharma’s and India’s sterling performance in the crucial Twenty20 game against South Africa on Thursday.

“This was a world stage and what matters is delivering the goods in crunch situations and against quality bowling. Moreover Kingsmead offers bounce and the bowlers manipulate the seam to good effect. It was an excellent knock by Rohit and an outstanding display by the Indian team.”

Rohit Sharma, coming through the wringer of a strong Mumbai club culture, honed his skills under coach Dinesh Lad.

He caught the attention of the selectors with a flamboyant 142 off just 123 balls against North Zone in a Deodhar Trophy match two years ago at Udaipur.

Last year, he was the dasher and crowd puller in the Twenty20 knockout at the Cricket Club of India.

With all eyes riveted on him in the 2006-07 domestic season, Sharma came a cropper in the first two Ranji matches against Bengal and Punjab, but pulled back with a 95 against Hyderabad before touching peak form.

Praveen Amre, coach of the Mumbai Ranji team, said he was happy for Sharma. Amre also said that Sharma was crucial to Mumbai’s success last year.

High strike rate

“He scored a double against Gujarat and that gave Mumbai the momentum to force wins, qualify for the knockout and ultimately win the national championship. Rohit’s strike rate has always been high and that’s what makes him a potentially good batsman for all forms of cricket.

“He smashed 101 not out against the West Zone Twenty20 at the Brabourne Stadium in 45 balls (13 x 4s, 5 x 6s) and Mumbai qualified for the BCCI’s knock out competition.

“As he always does, Rohit took time to judge the bounce and seam movement at Kingsmead. The run out of Justin Kemp was executed in one swift action. The future looks bright for Rohit,” said Amre.

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