Rohit Sharma recently recalled how Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri breathed new life into his Test career. He remembers how Kohli, then-test captain, and head coach Shastri encouraged him to play a practice match in the longest format, where he got out on the very first ball. Even with this early setback, he chose to play aggressively from the start, much like white-ball cricket. In October 2019, he scored a remarkable 176 runs against South Africa, where he opened for the first time in test. Rohit discussed how Kohli and Shastri supported him on Jatin Sapru's YouTube channel. He said, "In the second innings, I was very grateful to Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli for giving me the opportunity to bat up the order. It wasn’t an easy decision to promote me in Tests. They trusted me." He added, "They asked me to play one practice match, which I did. I got out on the very first ball, but I realized that I didn’t have any other choice. It felt like a second birth in Test cricket. I knew I had to grab this opportunity, whether it meant opening, batting at No. 5 or 6, or even lower down the order." Rohit made his Test debut in 2013 but could not retain his place in the team. By 2018, he had played just 27 Tests, scoring 1,585 runs with three hundreds and ten fifties, and was not a regular player. He wanted to make a comeback, so he took on the challenge and chose to play freely. Also Read | Watch: Chris Gayle Welcomes PM Modi with a Heartfelt Namaste His new approach was there to be seen in the second Test against Bangladesh when he hit two sixes off the first two balls of India's first innings. Rohit said that Ravi Shastri wanted him to open in Tests since 2015, "Ravi Bhai was very eager for me to open in Tests for a long time. He told me in 2015 that I should consider it as an option. He wanted me to open, but the decision wasn’t in my hands." Picking Rohit to open the innings, like in limited-overs cricket, was an important moment in his career. Since then, he has scored 2,594 runs in 34 Tests, with nine centuries and seven fifties as an opener in Test Cricket. India won the two-match series by chasing a small target of 95 against Bangladesh on the fifth day of the second Test at Green Park Stadium in Kanpur on Tuesday. The Indian team is at the top of World Test Championship points table with a PCT of 74.2 after 11 matches and is well-placed to qualify for the final for third successive time.