A gift from the Lord: How Rohit Sharma found his mojo at the Home of Cricket

Rohit Sharma didn’t have the best time with the bat during the ODI series in England earlier this year. But he found quite an interesting way to get back into form and it was an unexpected gift from his statesman and close friend Shardul Thakur.

The former Indian captain opened up about this moment on his show Family Full House with Rohit Sharma. He admitted that the first two games of the series were not up to his standards. In fact, he scored just 11 and 26 runs in the first two matches.

The final game of the series brought Rohit to Lord’s, with pressure on the Indian opener to deliver two low scores each. He did exactly that and created a a brilliant 138 to help India finish the series on a high. In fact, it was his first hundred at Lord’s.

But the story of the bat he used for this innings was perhaps even more interesting.

Rohit revealed that Shardul was gifted him before the bat match, a gesture that eventually became a small but memorable part of his Master’s story.

“Last ODI series jo humne kheli thi, jis se mere kuch running bane the last ODI mein. Woh bat mujhe Shardul ne diya tha” (The last ODI series we played with which I scored some runs in the last ODI. Shardul gave me that bat), Rohit said on his show.

Rohit then explained the rather simple reason why Shardul had the bat to spare. As a bowler, Shardul often gets batted and Rohit joked that he continues to get them, sometimes even better than the batsman himself.

What started as a simple gift from one teammate to another eventually became part of Rohit’s memorable 138 at the Home of Cricket.

To Shardul, it was just a bat that he got and passed on to a close friend. For Rohit, it became the bat he took to Lord’s and used it to produce a memorable innings after a difficult start to the series and get his name on the Honor board.

– The end

Issued by:

Amar Panicker

Published on:

19 Sep 2026 20:04 IST