Rohit Sharma has watched several versions of Australia, just as Australia has beheld different iterations of Rohit Sharma. When he first landed Down Under in 2008, Ricky Ponting was the captain, the troika of Bill Lawry, Tony Greig and Richie Benaud were still commentating.

In the next 17 years, Australia’s ODI leadership would change half a dozen hands, the ODI emperors would stack their cupboard with two more World Cups, and would painfully endure the death of Phil Hughes and Shane Warne.

In this span, Rohit’s narrative too traced different arcs. Australia has seen him as a wunderkind, drooled on his nonchalance when he square-drove and square-cut Mitchell Johnson in Brisbane, his first sighting in the country, and in the subsequent years as a withering prodigy, a reborn batsman, a d

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