Even the supremely fit Virat Kohli can get exhausted and feel the rigours of calendar-congestion. A day before the start of the series, in Kolkata, he hinted in as

many words that he required rest. “I’m not a robot, you can slice my skin and check I bleed. I too need rest,” he said.

Heeding to Kohli’s request, the selectors have finally decided to rest him for the 50-over installment of this series, thereby making his deputy, Rohit Sharma,

the skipper for the three-match ODI series beginning on December 10.

It was a timely break ahead of a long sequence of series overseas, which begins in South Africa. Whereas several other players had time to cool off, for several

reasons ranging from injury to bad form and over-specific cricket, Kohli has been playing virtually non stop, missing just one of his last 60 Tests India has

played. The workload since the West Indies tour last year has been staggering — in the span of nearly one-and-a-half years, he has played an astounding 65

international games across formats, which included 21 Tests, 38 ODIS and half-a-dozen T20Is. Even if you don’t consider the travel days, the IPL season, and

the rigours of captaincy, he has played an astonishing amount of cricket, all the while sustaining prolific consistency as well. Since the start of the Caribbean

tour, no one has played as many games or faced as many balls (5088) as Kohli. And we are not even trying to attempt a rough estimate of the runs he ran or

miles he traversed in the process.

The frenetic itinerary had him dissed on several counts. Between the two Sri Lanka series were clubbed two context-less limited-over series against New

Zealand and Australia.

“As usual cramped for time, which I think we needed to assess in future as well because we very easily assess the team when we go abroad but we don’t look

at how many days we have got to prepare before we go to a particular place to play. And everyone starts judging players when results come after Test

matches,” he said before the second Test, forcing the team management to suddenly ask the curators to make green-tops out of dust-bowls.

Most others of the team’s nucleus had some form of rest or the other. Murali Vijay had a lengthy injury layoff. Shikhar Dhawan was out of the team for a while;

Ishant Sharma’s previous international match was against Australia in Ranchi last March and played only six IPL games. KL Rahul, Umesh Yadav and Ajinkya

Rahane flew in and out of the limited-overs scheme. Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, two others who were clearly over-worked players, sat out of the

entire limited-overs interlude between the Lanka series, only playing a handful of Ranji matches. Cheteshwar Pujara didn’t feature in the IPL at all, and had a

lengthy respite between the county season and the Ranji Trophy.

So, the Sri Lanka series was practically the last opportunity for Kohli to refresh and reboot before the South Africa series. Hence, Kohli had pleaded for workload

management, lest he burn out. “That is where the balance needs to be maintained going forward, because if you have too much cricket going on, especially guys

playing all three formats, it is humanly impossible to maintain same intensity and same level of performance as you do in the earlier phase of the season,” he

said.

Kohli’s break, though, gives Rohit a chance to exhibit his captaincy skills. Though he has never captained his country, he has shown his aptitude for Mumbai

Indians, whom he has steered to three titles in four years. Besides, having cemented his place in ODIs, he is one of the core decision-makers in the side.

Rohit says it has something he has inculcated in the highly competitive world of Mumbai cricket. “There were stalwarts in that dressing room, and you have to

find your place in that playing XI, so you have to be more disciplined and bring something to the table every now and then,” he said.