Dinesh Karthik reveals how Rohit Sharma was 'really hurt' after being overlooked for 2018 England Tests

Rohit Sharma's career took a turn for the better after being promoted as an opener during the 2013 Champions Trophy, with the current India captain finally cementing his place in the team after struggling for a spot in his first six years in international cricket.

However, while Rohit would go on to become a superstar of the game in the white-ball formats and has remained the first-choice opener ever since, he did face some hurdles along the way, particularly in Tests.

Despite scoring back-to-back hundreds in his debut series against West Indies in 2013, he wasn't always considered an automatic pick for the Test opener's slot — which had seen plenty of chopping and changing for a majority of the previous decade.

During this time, Rohit had to contend with batting in the Test middle-order and while he got off to promising starts more often than not, the centuries that would've guaranteed him a regular spot in the side weren't coming his way.

And according to veteran wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik, Rohit's confidence took a major hit when he was overlooked for India's Test campaign in the tour of England in the summer of 2018, although he was picked for the ODIs and T20Is.

"He had almost gone down the path where he was so successful as a white-ball cricketer. He was happy doing that. And when he did come back into the Test team, you've got to remember in 2018, he was dropped from the Test team.

"He was sent back after the white-ball leg and that really hurt him. Rohit Sharma did not see that coming and that really tore him to shreds," Karthik was quoted as saying in Cricbuzz's docu-series Summer Stalemate.

Rohit had scored just 78 runs in the Test series in South Africa earlier that year at an average of 19.50, numbers that don't exactly inspire confidence and might have played a role in him getting overlooked for the England campaign — which India ended up losing 1-4.

Rohit's fortunes as a Test cricketer, however, would change in 2019 as he was backed to open in the longest format after a stupendous run in the ODI World Cup, where he scored five centuries.

'Hitman' responded with three tons across two Tests — including his career-best 212 — in the Test series against South Africa at home. And he would further consolidate himself as the first-choice Test opener by scoring his maiden overseas hundred in the format in England in the summer of 2021.

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