The incident happened during the Indore Test in BGT 2023 between India and Australia.
Rohit Sharma and Nathan Lyon have had their battles on the cricketing field, and the Australian spinner has had the better of the ex-India captain. Lyon dismissed Rohit 9 times in 19 innings they faced off in Tests.
When his squad needs to make quick runs, though, the former captain of India isn't exactly in favor of Lyon's world-class status.
Highlighting a widely shared incident from his time as captain of the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, in which he was clearly annoyed by his teammate Cheteshwar Pujara's lackluster scoring output, Rohit disclosed the message that caused the then-India No. 3 to hammer Lyon with a six over wide mid-on.
In the third Test match against Australia in Indore two years ago, the Indians faced the prospect of a rare home loss. Rohit, who clearly desired a change of pace, became irritated with Pujara and Axar Patel's cautious play against Lyon when India was 140/7 in the second innings.
Rohit could be seen delivering messages to substitute Ishan Kishan as the cameras panned on the Mumbaikar. Kishan then went onto the field to deliver the messages.
Soon after, as Rohit sprinted down the strip to smash Lyon over mid-on for six, the stoic Pujara would make him smile. Even though India would ultimately accept a meager 75-run target set for the Australians in the loss, the incident would spark discussion on social media.
“We wanted to get Nathan Lyon off the track a little bit. We wanted to get some runs quickly. We were probably looking at declaring or something. We were like… ‘no, something needs to change now. Maybe, a message would do good’. The entire time, he was bowling with mid-on up. I was like, ‘he’s not that good of a bowler to keep mid-on up’. I know it was a challenge, the pitch was turning square, but we needed to get runs quickly. So I had to send Ishan,” Rohit revealed at the book launch of ‘The Diary of a Cricketer’s Wife’, written by Pujara’s wife, Puja, in Mumbai.
Rohit cheekily said that it wasn’t always that batters (himself included) received the messages from the dressing room with both hands.
“It’s one thing that we send messages. The most important thing is.. sometimes what batters do is whenever someone comes out with a message, we know exactly why he’s there. So, I would stop him there only!” remarked Rohit.