Rohit Sharma's Comfort Food During Test Matches
In the quietest hours of a Test match, when the stadium lights are off but the mind is still playing every ball on loop, Rohit Sharma reached for something deceptively simple.
Not throwdowns. Not the laptop. A dabba of his mother’s banana wafers.
The former India captain, who walked away from Test cricket last year after 67 matches and 4,301 runs, opened a small window into that side of his life on his television show, ‘Family Full House with Rohit Sharma’. It was there he admitted that his favourite format also gave him the most restless nights.
“Haan, hoti toh hai. Main jhooth nahi bolunga,” he said, speaking about the nerves that came with Test cricket. It wasn’t a passing anxiety. It sat with him. Lingered. Especially when he knew he would be walking out again the next morning in the format he loved the most.
Test cricket, he said, never allowed him to relax easily. Every session carried its own weight, each mistake magnified over five days. “Kyunki Test match khelna aasaan format nahi hai. Koi bhi format aasaan nahi hota, lekin Test match ke apne alag-alag challenges hote the,” Rohit explained. That constant churn meant sleep rarely arrived on time.
“Nervousness mein mujhe neend nahi aati thi, toh raat bhar main jaaga rehta tha,” he said. Long nights. Longer thoughts. A captain, an opener, a senior pro – but also just a player alone with his doubts in a hotel room.
And that is where the comfort food came in.
When the clock crawled past midnight and the mind refused to slow down, the hunger followed. “Toh aap jaage rehte ho toh kuch na kuch khaane ka mann karta tha,” Rohit said. He had a plan for that too. He always carried one constant on tour – a taste of home.
“Main hamesha mere saath mera comfort food rakhta tha, jo meri mummy hamesha bana ke deti thi, woh tha banana wafers.”
Not the oily, crunchy kind that fill supermarket shelves. These came with a twist and a mother’s care. “Woh fried nahi hota tha. Meri mummy ke kuch tareeke the, woh bake karti thi usko,” he revealed. A healthier version, baked, packed, and sent with him, series after series. A small ritual in a career built on routines.
He would keep them close, knowing exactly when he might need them. “Woh main hamesha apne saath leke chalta tha. Toh kabhi bhi mann karta tha toh usse kha leta tha,” Rohit said.
For a batter who carved out 12 Test centuries and 18 fifties, including a highest score of 212, the game’s longest format demanded everything – technique, patience, stamina, and a stubborn mind. But even at that level, under all the numbers and milestones, the human need was disarmingly simple: a homemade snack to take the edge off the pressure.
Under the whites, behind the records, there was a son in a hotel room, fighting sleep, replaying spells in his head, and reaching into a box of baked banana wafers that tasted like home.
