Michael Atherton Hails Rohit Sharma As The Best Example Of A Naturally-Gifted Player

Former English captain Michael Atherton has not fallen short of words for praising Rohit Sharma. In the past few years, Rohit Sharma has remained in his prime and has gone on from strength to strength in limited-overs cricket. The 33-year old has a penchant of being one of the best pullers of the ball and one cannot afford to leave their screens when he is in full flow.

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While Rohit Sharma’s form in limited-overs cricket produced heaps of runs, his run in Test cricket was still lean. However, following his promotion to the top-order in 2019, the fortunes turned around in whites too. The right-handed batsman muscled 556 runs in ten Tests as an opener; however, one would have to see how he fares overseas.

Nevertheless, Michael Atherton strongly backs to translate his limited-overs form into Test cricket as well. According to Atherton, unlike most batsmen, Rohit looks quite natural at the crease and does not look over-coached or forced or silted.

“I watch Rohit and think well you can’t not be successful at Test level. He just looks such a good player that you’d think that success will come. The one thing I do enjoy watching and this is a general point about Indian batsmen is that they look very natural to me and not over-coached and forced or stilted,” the Lancashire batsman stated as quoted by Hindustan Times.

No better example than Rohit Sharma: Michael Atherton

The cricketer-turned-commentator revealed that in a conversation with Rahul Dravid, he came to know the reason why Indian players seem more natural than the Englishmen. Dravid opined that it might be because India plays cricket throughout the year while England, because of the weather, spends plenty of time practising indoors. The 52-year-old stated that there is no better example than that of Rohit Sharma, who is a naturally-gifted player.

“I was chatting to Rahul Dravid a couple of years ago. I was asking him why he felt that India’s players looked more natural and less forced than England’s at that level. He thought it was do with the fact that India’s cricketers all year around play, and because of the weather in England, a lot of English players spend six months indoors on bowling machines and it can look a bit forced after that… a bit overcoached.

He felt a lot of India’s young batsmen were learning in play rather than being coached personally. So I always enjoy watching that about watching Indian batsmen, they look very natural and fluid and fluent and of course, no better example than Rohit Sharma,” the former opening batsman Michael Atherton added.

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