Some players have a great mutual understanding between them, especially when it comes to running between the wickets. They automatically understand their partner’s body language and signals. It’s safe to say Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli don’t fall in that category.
Tuesday’s run out during India’s ODI against South Africa in Port Elizabeth was the seventh occasion Rohit and Kohli have been involved in a run out. That’s the second worst record by any pair in ODIs in the last decade behind the South African duo of AB de Villiers-Faf du Plessis and Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan who have been involved in eight apiece.
Out of those seven instances, Kohli has been forced to walk back to the pavilion on five occasions with the fifth being Tuesday’s ODI.
While the run outs have proven costly for Kohli, they have been extremely lucky, in a way, for Rohit.
Life's inevitabilities.
— Sorabh Pant (@hankypanty) February 13, 2018
Death.
Pani Puri juice falling on your shirt.
Gravity.
Kohli & Rohit Sharma run out.
The India opener has cashed in every time he has run Kohli out in ODIs. The first time Rohit ran Kohli out, the Mumbai batsman ended up making 57 against the West Indies in Kingston in 2011. Two years later, another mix-up ended on a good note for Rohit as he smashed 209 against Australia in Bengaluru. History repeated itself in 2014 as Rohit ran Kohli out against Sri Lanka in Kolkata and went on to become the only player in history to score two ODI double tons with his knock of 264.
In 2016 against the Aussies in Brisbane, Rohit scored 124 after running the current skipper out and the ‘lucky’ trend continued in South Africa on Tuesday where the Mumbai opener hit the 17th century of his ODI career with a classy 115.
So in the future if Rohit is ever out of form, needs to score big and finds Kohli at the other end, he knows what to do.
