“Did he get a sense that axe was coming?” - Michael Atherton on Rohit Sharma’s Test retirement

Former England cricketer and commentator Michael Atherton feels former Indian Test captain Rohit Sharma sensed that he was being pushed off the Test side after his recent poor performances in the longest format of the game, both as captain and as a batter.

Speaking about his Test captaincy, Team India suffered a 0-3 series defeat to New Zealand at home. Later, they lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by 1-3 Down Under. Moreover, Rohit could score only 31 runs from three Tests before dropping himself from the Sydney Test.

Interestingly, BCCI thought of continuing with Rohit as captain, thanks to his Champions Trophy 2025 heroics. However, a few reports emerged that his captaincy in the longest format of the game is under scrutiny.

Eventually, on May 7, Rohit decided to hang up his boots from the Test format ahead of the new World Test Championship cycle and England tour, scheduled to start in June.

"Was that retirement completely his own decision, or did he get a sense that he's about to be pushed or the axe was coming because there was a report, the day before the announcement from Rohit, that the selectors had decided to move on," Atherton said on Sky Sports.

"So that's speculation, we don't know, but ultimately the decision didn't come as a surprise because it's a bad combination for any captain, as you know, and as I know well if you're losing games, and you ain't getting any runs, and India had lost 5 out of the last 6 matches under Rohit's captaincy. Three against New Zealand and a couple in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and his form had really tailed off and of course, that's a bad combination for any captain," he added.

Moreover, Atherton hailed Rohit as one of the greatest openers in the one-day format. However, the Indian opener had a rather interesting Test career, divided into two halves.

"I think people will look at him and his best format is ODI cricket. He's going to go down as one of the greatest ODI openers, isn't he? But a funny Test career. He had to wait for a long time to get in and then almost a career of two halves in Test cricket, averaging just a tick over 40 in the end with a dozen hundreds means it's a successful record, but not quite a stellar record," Atherton stated.

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