India captain Rohit Sharma came in for some sharp criticism from former South Africa batter Daryll Cullinan. He called the Mumbai batter ‘overweight’ and a ‘flat track bully’, while discussing his cricketing future.

Cullinan, who played 70 Tests and 138 ODIs for South Africa from 1993 to 2001, also compared Rohit Sharma’s fitness levels with his teammate Virat Kohli.

Rohit Sharma, who is coming off a poor series with the bat against New Zealand at home, managed just 3 and 6 runs in the Adelaide Test loss, after missing the first Test in Perth for the birth of his second child.

“Look at Rohit, then at Virat. Notice the difference in their physical condition. Rohit is overweight, and not a long-term cricketer anymore. Rohit is not in a good physical condition for the hard grind of a four or a five-match Test series,” Cullinan told InsideSport.

Rohit has endured a lean patch since India’s home Test season in September, scoring only one fifty in his last 12 Test innings. With KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal doing well as openers in the Perth Test, Rohit moved to the no.6 spot but got out for single-digit scores in the Adelaide pink-ball Test.

“I will say it again. Rohit’s best at home but I just wonder if it is not going to backfire India because they were not the same team in the second Test. I think Rohit is a flat-track bully. Let’s look at the record outside India. Every time he has been to South Africa, I’ve clearly got the feeling that he does not like the short ball. (I did not like) the fact that he’s in the middle-order now. He is an opener. He must come and lead from the front,” Cullinan remarked.

Rohit’s Test average has slipped down to 41.54, his lowest in six years since he last played in the middle-order for India in December 2018.