Rohit Sharma was made to wait for his first run in T20I cricket since 2022 in comical fashion, only realising belatedly that his first ball had been incorrectly given as leg byes.

The India captain questioned umpire Virender Sharma, who had signalled leg byes, upon realising he had been left scoreless, but to no avail.

Rohit, who sat out all of India’s T20I engagements in 2023 with the focus on Test cricket and ODIs, has had to wait for his first run since the 2022 T20 World Cup semi-final, run out for a duck in the first T20I and bowled for a golden duck in the second. This time, India scored eight off the first five balls Rohit faced, but none were credited to the batter, with four leg byes signalled both times.

The first was an error, with UltraEdge clearly showing Rohit had tickled the ball with his bat down to the fine leg fence, while the second ballooned up off the body and was correctly signalled.

As Rohit took guard in the second over of the game, he realised he was still on nought, and asked the official “Viru, thigh pad diya kya pehla ball? Itna bada bat laga hai bhai. Ek toh idhar do zero ho gaya hai? (Viru, did you give it off the thigh-pad? It hit the bat so properly. I already have two zeroes!)”.

Rohit’s sixth ball was also a dot, before he finally got off the mark, running the ball down to deep third.

He had to watch from the other end as India slid early on, with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli falling off consecutive balls, and Shivam Dube also dismissed in the powerplay. By the end of the fourth over, Rohit had seven off 11, and India were 21-3. By the end of the fifth, with Sanju Samson also out first ball, India were 22-4.

Watch Rohit question the umpire over the leg bye calls below:

Arey Viru, pehle wala Thigh pad Diya tha kya? Itna bada bat laga hai. Ek toh idhar 2 zero ho gaya hain 🤣👍 pic.twitter.com/Nfk0oZmTCi

— Wellu (@Wellutwt) January 17, 2024