I modelled myself after Sachin

He was born in Nagpur and brought up in Mumbai, but the latest top gun in the Indian cricket batting line-up, Rohit Sharma, is a Hyderabadi at heart. Rohit’s parents are from coastal Andhra and are now settled in Mumbai. Though the 20-year-old cannot speak his mother tongue, Telugu, he can “understand it quite well,” reason enough that he loves the big team in the Indian Premier League.
“I am very, very happy to be playing for Hyderabad,” Rohit told this correspondent after a practice session. Hyderabad snapped up the hotshot at the IPL auction for $750,000, the kind of money the youngster has never dealt with.
Understandably, the reliable batsman cannot hide his excitement. “It’s a pleasure to play alongside the big names,” he says of the star-studded Hyderabad side that includes Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds (both Australia), Herschelle Gibbs (South Africa), Shahid Afridi (Pakistan), Scott Styris (New Zealand), Chaminda Vaas, Chamara Silva and Nuwan Zoysa (all Sri Lanka). “With a line-up like that, we should give the other teams a run for their money,” he says.
Rohit is a hard worker, the sole bread winner in the family — his father used to work for the Railways and mother is a housewife. Rohit has a brother who is studying in the USA.
The youngster shot into the limelight by scoring heavily in the Mumbai inter-schools tournament which earned him spots on State junior teams as well as the India U-19 side, all off which he capitalised on to spring into the Indian team.
“I have modelled myself after Sachin Tendulkar,” says Rohit, who will eventually take up the master batsman’s position of No. 4 in Tests after the big bat bows out from the game.