Vijay Hazare Trophy | Pink City rolls out the red carpet for Rohit Sharma

It felt like a festival at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium on Tuesday. The stands, which until recently were covered with a thick growth of bushes, were being cleaned up hurriedly; the ad-hoc committee members of the Rajasthan Cricket Association rushed to organise a quick felicitation programme (which eventually didn’t materialise); die-hard cricket fans waited patiently for hours.

And all this for one man — Rohit Sharma.

Following the BCCI’s mandate, Rohit will be turning up for Mumbai in the first two fixtures of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, beginning with the game against Sikkim on Wednesday.

Rohit sweated it out in the nets for a couple of hours before inspecting the pitch, which looked flat.

Coming on the back of a disappointing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy campaign, where Mumbai missed out on the final by a whisker, Rohit’s presence has been a huge boost for the team, which will be without Ajinkya Rahane, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Suryakumar Yadav.

“Rohit has always been a guiding force for youngsters. We have seen that in the Indian team as well, where he gets a lot of praise from youngsters and fellow teammates… I can already see that he is continuing with that job,” said Mumbai captain Shardul Thakur.

While Rohit’s participation in the tournament has led to fan frenzy, there are also debates on whether it makes any sense to include star players for just two games as it eventually affects the team balance.

Shardul, however, disagreed.

“Mumbai team is always known to have a lot of international players. Because of the kind of cricket that we play and the quality we have, a lot of players go and represent the Indian team. But when they come back, they absolutely play like a professional,” Shardul said.

The Sikkim cricketers, too, hope to pick Rohit’s brains after the ‘biggest match’ of their career.