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The lines - "Hey you, standing in the aisles with itchy feet and fading smiles" can best be used to describe the case of a certain Rohit Sharma in the Indian cricket team. If someone has been a close follower of Rohit's situation down under, it will make it a cake walk for him to realize that the aforementioned lines are preached by this stylish right hander more than any other soul in the Indian dressing room.

If we track back to the start of the tour down under, Rohit, who was already in good form after a successful ODI series against the West Indies at home, started with a couple of decent outings including a fluent fifty in the second practice game just before the Boxing Day Test. All speculation leading to his immediate need as a long term no.6 were humbled a little bit by a ton from his closest competitor Virat Kohli who smashed a 100 in the same practice game in which Sharma got a fifty and a little bit by the law of justice which implies that you give opportunity with merits encoring longevity and consistency.

Along came Boxing Day, and as bad as India's result was, there was a certain Virat Kohli who looked like an alien to a game that he has played from his childhood. It would have been harsh on Virat to drop him after one failure, even though he failed in the Caribbean earlier in 2011, but there were some intense talks doing the rounds of bringing in Rohit as the former's replacement. Along came Sydney and Virat got pummeled as badly as India floundered. Talks for Rohit's inclusion intensified and this time with a zing involving the names of some seniors, particularly the Very Very Special Laxman. Along came Perth, but this time around Virat was the lone warrior with a couple of fluent knocks including a brilliant fifty in the second innings with India's fate synonymous to misery. With the series gone, it became quite obvious that Rohit will definitely get a game in the Don's backyard in place of a senior, but surprise surprise, it wasn't to be. Best articulated by Sanjay Manjrekar on twitter – "Aussies persisting with youth (referring to Shaun Marsh), like India persisting with the old".

The life story of Rohit Sharma has not been much different from the subset mentioned in the preceding paragraph. A kid starting with a potential of being the next big thing, slated to be the next prospected no. 4 in tests, according to a legend of the game, Ian Chappell, and we know the holiness of the no.4 spot in India with Tendulkar making it sacred. Rohit first came on to the scene with some blistering and eye catching performances in the same land under discussion, in 2008 in the same CB series involving the hosts and Sri Lanka, similar to the current series. With some excellent performances including a partnership with Tendulkar in one of the finals to help India secure their first win in that tournament announced the arrival of a potential biggie.

But, like it so often happens, with talent comes arrogance which in excess leads to complacency. Complacency was the bug that struck this brilliant right hander, and he was soon dropped and was seen running the hard yards to get back to what was expected for him. With some excellent domestic form including the IPL, Rohit got a chance to make a test debut in early 2010 against the Proteas at home, but destiny prevailed and he got injured during practice on the morning of the Nagpur Test which led to a test debut for Wriddhiman Saha instead.

Rohit was mostly out of sorts in 2010 and ultimately faced the biggest disappointment of his life missing out on the World Cup Triumph in 2011. But, as it is very rightly said, "disappointments breed champions", and so was the case with Rohit. He came back with a bang to win the man of the series in the ODI series in the Caribbean. That was not enough to win him a test berth in England but he sure was slated to play a big part in the ODIs.

Can you believe it, the first ball he faced from Stuart Broad in the ODIs in England, Rohit got an awkward bouncing delivery breaking his finger keeping him on the sidelines for another couple of months. But again, he bounced back like a champion to get some great Ranji form going to help get a reserve berth in the Test team after Yuvraj Singh's illness.

There is a sense of calmness and level headedness about this chap which generates a breath of confidence for the onlooker. If the pattern of Rohit's story is something to go by, it has to have a nice ending to it since a good beginning is as good as a good end. The ongoing CB series down under can be the most interesting chapter of this story since it can define this story's status as an epic or as a layman's archive. It will definitely give us a fair idea as to how often will the name Rohit Sharma feature in the future Indian XIs, and for India's sake, it should.

This is for those of us who believe that fairytales do happen, for Rohit's sake, let's hope so.

File Photograph Copyright: ICC World T20