Rohit Sharma hits form with a tremendous ton against England in Cuttack
New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI): Rohit Sharma the 'Batter' owed 'Captain' Rohit Sharma a favour for the longest time. On a sultry Sunday at the Barabati Stadium, the 37-year-old Mumbaikar knew that the batter in him had no options left but to give the skipper a breathing space.
A ton of stone might have been removed from his chest but his muted celebrations said it all. It was more of relief and less of happiness.
He did that in style with a hundred (119, 90b, 12x4, 7x6) that will always be his personal favourite in terms of pressure quotient when he would have time to reflect on his white ball career full of milestones.
A performing captain is one who commands respect in the dressing room.
Not that his stature has diminished in that change room but someone, who has played the game on his own terms wouldn't like men lurking around him with question mark running through the contours of their faces even if it is head coach Gautam Gambhir, who gave away very little while clapping for his skipper's hundred with a customary poker-face.
Having endured a wretched run since the start of the New Zealand series at home, the affable Indian skipper faced the most scathing criticism in his 17-plus years at the international level.
As much as players speak about "outside noise", an under-pressure man in a high-stakes world would be vulnerable after a point. The memes hurt, conjectures about living on borrowed time must have bruised his champions' ego big time.
The criticism was not unwarranted. He was consistently failing in Test matches and it came to a point where he had to drop himself from the playing XI of the Sydney Test match.
But only he could have changed it all.
Till the opening game in Nagpur, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for Rohit -- till February 9 happened.
Finally, the sixes were soaring into the stands and one saw the vintage Rohit, who wasn't pre-empting anything but like good old days reacting to the deliveries.
Unlike Australia Tests where he was standing outside the crease trying to counter the movement, he stood deep inside the crease and things started happening.
Just like everything goes wrong when it has to go wrong, things start falling in place when it has to.
England bowlers made a cardinal mistake during the first ODI by trying to pepper Shreyas Iyer with short-pitched deliveries.
In the second ODI on a firm, even bounce track, Saqib Mahmood, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, all decided to bowl the fuller length. However, most of the deliveries were over-pitched and Rohit had played enough cricket to hit through the line with immaculate timing.
When Mark Wood bowled, it was back of the length and Rohit could execute his strokes using the depth of the crease. He could also pick his slower bouncer and deposit it in the stands.
"There is a colloquial lingo in Indian cricket -- line se line milana or hitting through the line. He was trying to hit it hard. He just timed each ball. The mindset was clear and he banked on his experience. Unlike the 2023 World Cup, he attacked but defended when needed, but also hit enough sixes to have a high strike-rate," former national selector Devang Gandhi said.
Gandhi was, in fact, right.
Rohit knew that an intent filled 40 off 20 balls wouldn't be enough in a result oriented world where volume still gets equal if not more impetus. During the World Cup in 2023, he could afford to play that high risk game but for once, he not only needed to play for the team but also for himself.
The cut shot off Adil Rashid and the six that brought up the 32nd hundred were class acts. And then came the reverse sweep.
Rohit Sharma finally batted like Rohit Sharma and the world is now a slightly better place.
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Zelenskyy says Putin wants rest of Ukraine's Donetsk region as part of ceasefire
Brussels, Aug 12 (AP): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw from the remaining 30 per cent of the Donetsk region that Ukraine controls as part of a ceasefire deal.
Zelenskyy said Russia's position had been conveyed to him by US officials ahead of a summit Friday between Putin and US President Donald Trump in Alaska on the war in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would not withdraw from territories it controls, saying that would be unconsitutional and would serve only as a springboard for a future Russian invasion.
It remained unclear whether Ukraine would take part in the Friday summit. European Union also has been sidelined from the meeting, and they appealed to Trump on Tuesday to protect their interests.
Zelenskyy said at a news briefing in Kyiv that Putin wants the remaining 9,000 square kilometres of Donetsk under Kyiv's control, where the war's toughest battles are grinding on, as part of a ceasefire plan. He said the Russian position was conveyed to him by US officials.
Doing so would hand Russia almost the entirety of the Donbas, a region comprising Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland that Putin has long coveted.
Zelenskyy was offering new details on the call he held with Trump and special envoy Steve Witkoff, after the latter's bilateral meeting with Putin. Witkoff told Zelenskyy that Russia was ready to end the war and that there should be territorial concessions from both sides. Some European partners were also part of the call.
“And that, probably, Putin wants us to leave Donbas. That is, it didn't sound like America wants us to leave,” he said, recounting the call. Further meetings at the level of National Security Advisors further clarified what Russia actually wanted, Zelenskyy said.
Meanwhile, Russian forces on the ground have been closing in on a key territorial grab around the city of Pokrovsk, potentially to use as leverage in any peace negotiations.
Seeking Trump's ear before the summit
Trump has said he wants to see whether Putin is serious about ending the war, now in its fourth year. The US president has disappointed allies in Europe by saying Ukraine will have to give up some Russian-held territory. He also said Russia must accept land swaps, although it was unclear what Putin might be expected to surrender.
The Europeans and Ukraine are wary that Putin, who has waged the biggest land war in Europe since 1945 and used Russia's energy might to try to intimidate the EU, might secure favourable concessions and set the outlines of a peace deal without them.
European countries' overarching fear is that Putin will set his sights on one of them next if he wins in Ukraine.
Their leaders said Tuesday they “welcome the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.” But, they underlined, “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine” and “international borders must not be changed by force.”
The Europeans on Wednesday will make a fresh attempt to rally Trump to Ukraine's cause at virtual meetings convened by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump did not confirm whether he would take part but did say “I'm going to get everybody's ideas” before meeting with Putin.
Russia holds shaky control over four of the country's regions, two in the country's east and two in the south.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the chief of Zelenskyy's office, said anything short of Russia's strategic defeat would mean that any ceasefire deal would be on Moscow's terms, erode international law and send a dangerous signal to the world.
'A profoundly alarming moment for Europe'
Trump's seemingly public rehabilitation of Putin — a pariah in most of Europe — has unnerved Ukraine's backers.
The summit in Alaska is a “profoundly alarming moment for Europe,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
According to Gould-Davies, Putin might persuade Trump to try to end the war by “accepting Russian sovereignty” over parts of Ukraine, even beyond areas that it currently occupies. Trump also could ease or lift sanctions which are causing “chronic pain” to the Russian economy.
That would provoke a “really serious split in the transatlantic alliance," he said.
The war isn't about Russia's territorial expansion but about Putin's goal of subordinating Ukraine, which would create the opportunity to threaten other parts of Europe, Gould-Davies said.
It was unclear whether the Europeans also were unsettled by Trump mistakenly saying twice he would be traveling to Russia on Friday to meet Putin. The summit is taking place in the U.S. state of Alaska, which was colonized by Russia in the 18th century until Czar Alexander II sold it to the U.S. in 1867.
Tuesday's European joint statement was meant to be a demonstration of unity. But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is Putin's closest ally in Europe and has tried to block EU support for Ukraine, was the only one of the bloc's 27 leaders who refused to endorse it.
Russia closes in on Pokrovsk
Russia appeared close to taking an important city in the Donetsk region, Pokrovsk.
Military analysts using open-source information to monitor the battles said the next 24-48 hours could be critical. Losing Pokrovsk would hand Russia an important victory ahead of the summit. It also would complicate Ukrainian supply lines to the Donetsk region, where the Kremlin has focused the bulk of military efforts.
“A lot will depend on availability, quantity and quality of Ukrainian reserves,” Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, wrote on social media late Monday.
Ukraine's military said its forces are fending off Russian infantry units trying to infiltrate their defensive positions in the Donetsk region. The region's Ukrainian military command on social media Monday acknowledged that the situation remains “difficult, unpleasant and dynamic.”
Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian missile attack on a military training facility left one soldier dead and 11 others wounded, the Ukrainian Ground Forces posted on social media. Soldiers rushing to shelters were hit with cluster munitions, according to the Ukrainian Ground Forces.
