IND vs SA | Rohit Sharma will be given enough time up top to find his game, says Virat Kohli

India is backing Rohit Sharma to finally fulfill his potential and perform in the upcoming Test series against South Africa beginning on Wednesday. Virat Kohli revealed on Tuesday that the plan to have Rohit open the batting in Tests was hatched a while ago, but a favourable situation never arose to put it into action.

After attempting six different combinations over 2018, India was on the lookout for alternatives. KL Rahul's form nosedived and Prithvi Shaw's eight-month suspension forced the management to go down the Rohit route. The relatively soft landing of a five-Test home season was too good a moment to let slide. Given that this was Rohit making a move to the top of the batting order, there were strong forces of deja vu that greenlighted the plan.

"For us and the management together, the communication happened a long while back," Kohli was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz. "But we could not see a situation where that could happen in the match. But now we have a situation where, you know, the opportunity is there. So we thought it's the ideal time to go ahead with it because we have spoken about it,” he added.

Kohli recalled how Rohit was previously a middle-order batsman in one-day cricket but then he converted and now the world knows what a great batsman he is.

Rohit has only played four of India's last 17 Tests after he was incidentally preferred over Ajinkya Rahane at the start of the last Test series against South Africa in January 2018. Given the recent upswing in fortunes of vice-captain Rahane and all-rounder Hanuma Vihari, both of who have been fighting for a spot in the starting XI, India were left with a decision to make - to either leave Rohit out of the squad once again or make way for him elsewhere (top) in the order.

The 32-year-old's outstanding limited-overs form and his natural stroke-making abilities tilted the scales in his favour, outweighing even the massive technical challenges associated with a move to the top of the order. As the Indian skipper would ascertain, this move needed some mental fine-tuning to succeed. 

"Look, in Test cricket, I think even I started at six, initially, then came up to four, I think it's more of a mental change. The moment you convince yourself that, yes, I'm good enough to do this. And once you put that thought in your head, then your game follows accordingly," the Indian skipper said.

For his part, Kohli and the team management are not pushing Rohit to take to opening against the red ball as seamlessly as he did over six years ago when pushed up to open in ODI cricket. In the words of Kohli, Rohit will be allowed to find his game. Kohli believes in India, opening is a slot where the player needs to be given space to understand his game. 

Kohli stated that Rohit would not be burdened with a reference point about the kind of opener the team management wanted him to become, but invoked the Virender Sehwag comparison anyway to talk about the 32-year-old's natural batting style.

"It's about finding your game in different conditions. Sometimes in India playing on pitches, say on day one, you know, the pitch is good to bat on, you might be playing more shots than you would in say South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, England. But having said that, we are not looking at a certain kind of, you know, display of batting from Rohit, it's about him finding his game at the top," Kohli said.

Kohli drew the comparison between Sehwag and Rohit stating they have a similar style and Rohit has the ability to gradually grow into the role. He reiterated that the management is not pushing Rohit to become that sort of a player in one or two innings, and that he will be allowed his space to grow naturally.