Rohit Sharma is not an angry man. Just as well, because anger doesn’t suit him.Rohit Sharma is not a bitter man. Just as well, because bitterness doesn’t suit him, either.These last few days, why, even months, must have been difficult for the stylist from Mumbai, one of the very few remaining batters in international cricket you’d travel miles to watch. In a rapidly changing world where aesthetics are fast being supplanted by raw power and where strength has superseded timing, Rohit is an anachronism. He doesn’t batter so much as caress the cricket ball, apologetic that he must dismiss it from his presence because that’s what his vocation demands, almost reverential in the manner in which he accumulates his runs, with an elegance and grace that come so naturally to him.For reasons best known to us, or maybe not, we have decided that we ought to have a larger say in Rohit’s future than the protagonist himself. So, we have indulged in rumour-mongering and baseless speculation. We have thrown respect out the window, we have embraced insensitivity and continued to question his place in the limited-overs scheme of things. This, despite the fact that he continues to deliver, admittedly not with the same consistency of yore which is but an inevitable fallout of advancing years.Flawless runFrom the time he was summarily axed as captain just months after leading India to a flawless title run at the Champions Trophy in Dubai in March last year, Rohit has needlessly been catapulted to the crosshairs of motivated gunslingers. Everything that he has accomplished, and that is more than most of the very best can even dare to dream of, has been conveniently ignored, if not forgotten. He has been put on trial every time he has donned the India blue and walked out to bat in a One-Day International – the only format in which he represents the country these days. If Rohit entertained a sense of persecution and utter disrespect, he was perfectly justified in doing so.But Rohit isn’t wired that way. Would he have been affected by the goings-on around him? Of course, because he also is all too human. He also bleeds when nicked, he also hurts like every one of us. But he isn’t the kind to sit back and mope at the unfairness of the world. He is old enough – 39, as we love to constantly keep reminding him – to understand how the world functions, how the cards are dealt, how the narrative can be twisted and manipulated so that by the end of the twisting and the manipulation, the original truth is couched in layers of misdirection.Through all of this, Rohit has maintained a stoic, admirably restrained, silence. He has taken the blows on his chin with equanimity, plunging himself into the sustained pursuit of a craft that has been his unshakeable ally for more than two decades. He has committed himself to becoming the fittest version of himself, perhaps aware that the tenuous safety net of captaincy too has been snatched away and that there is no insurance anymore – not that he has needed it in the past – against a free fall.These things happen in team sport, and especially in cricket in India, which has been dominated by strong personalities who are quickly brushed aside once we opt to move on to the ‘next big thing’. Social media has merely amplified this phenomenon; everyone with access to a keyboard has an opinion, and several of these opinions are vitriolic and venomous. It takes a thick hide, or a complete disassociation with social media, to carry on as if nothing is happening, which we all know is easier said than done.