Rohit Sharma’s 6-month India hiatus commences after registering worst ODI performance in 14 years

Less than one and a half months ago, on December 6, 2025, to be precise, Rohit Sharma played a 75-run knock against South Africa in Visakhapatnam. In the same series, the former India captain had played a 57-run and a 16-run knock. 148 runs in 3 matches. Average of 49.33. By his lofty standards, it was an underwhelming series. He got two starts but failed to convert them.

Rohit Sharma’s forgettable New Zealand outing

Rohit played two matches for Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, scoring 155 against Sikkim and 0 against Uttarakhand. He was expected to pick up where he left off in the India vs New Zealand ODI series. Forget registering a single half-century; Rohit has ended the 3-match series with 61 runs combined.

26, 24, and 11 – these were his scores. Starts in all three matches and timid endings in all of them. India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate had come under fire for stating that Rohit hadn’t looked fluent in the first two matches.

“Rohit, I thought tonight, particularly, both innings were a real new-ball wicket. It didn’t look easy to bat. Over a short period of time, if you take the first ODI, he’s (Rohit) not been as fluent as he has been, and that’s going to be a challenge for him, not playing cricket between series,” ten Doeschate had said.

But he was correct. Rohit hadn’t looked at his best. One can’t know the reason behind the non-performance. December 26, 2025, was the last time Rohit had played a competitive match. It wasn’t like he was out of touch. For whatever reason, it just didn’t click against New Zealand.

His mode of dismissals doesn’t suggest any obvious issues. In all three matches, he tried to take the bowler on and didn’t execute the shot properly. It wasn’t that swing or seam movement that got the better of him. However, it has turned out to be his worst ODI series since the 2012 tour of Sri Lanka, where he scored 13 runs in 5 matches, including two back-to-back ducks.

Rohit will play the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season with the Mumbai Indians (MI), but his next series for India will come in July in England. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens in this ‘ODI break’ for Rohit.

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