Rohit did not travel with the Indian team to Perth as he stayed back in Mumbai for the birth of his second child. He joined the Indian camp midway through the opening Test and played his first match on Sunday in the warm-up tie against Australia Prime Minister’s XI. Shubman Gill, who missed the opener owing to a thumb injury, too featured in the Test. However, while the latter pushed his case for a comeback into the XI with a stunning fifty, before retiring not-out, the 37-year-old, who walked in at No. 4, had a contrasting outing in Canberra.

Rohit did look cautious against the deliveries outside off, a feature that helped him resurrect his Test career as an opener during the England tour in 2021, before being attacked with a few shorter deliveries. However, his 11-ball stay ended with the delivery down the corridor of uncertainty. After leaving the first from Charlie Anderson, he went chasing after the next and ended up poking the delivery straight to the fielder at first slip.

While it might still be too early to create judgements on Rohit’s form, given that the score added to his ongoing struggle in the format after the home series against Bangladesh and New Zealand, it definitely sparked concerns over his batting position.

‘Rohit should come in at No. 6’

Rohit had left the Indian opening pair undisturbed, allowing KL Rahul to continue his pairing with Yashasvi Jaiswal, after their record 201-run match-winning stand in Perth. The duo responded with a valiant 75-run stand in the warm-up tie.

The India captain, hence, took up the middle-order responsibility, despite not having batted outside the top-order spot since 2018. And while there may be concerns, former national selector Devang Gandhi urged Rohit to stick to the role for the Adelaide Test and avoid “unnecessary chopping and changing.”

“In fact, I feel Rohit should come in at No. 6, because Rishabh Pant, too, has shaped up very well at 5…The left-right combo, too, can be maintained that way,” Gandhi told Times of India. “It becomes difficult if a middle-order batter tries to become an opener in the latter stages of his career. But it will not be difficult for an opener to go in the middle-order, especially for Rohit, who started as a No. 6 batter for India.”

The last time Rohit batted at No. 6 was in the 2018/19 tour of Australia, when he scored 37, 1, 63* and 5 in the two matches in Melbourne and Adelaide.