Rohit Sharma's Test Cricket Ritual: Mother’s Banana Wafers

Rohit Sharma spent a decade living inside the unforgiving rhythms of Test cricket. The long spells in the field, the scrutiny, the knowledge that one mistake could undo four days of work. What he has now revealed is that some of those nights between days of a Test were not spent sleeping, but sitting awake with a very simple ally: his mother’s homemade banana wafers.

On his television show, ‘Family Full House with Rohit Sharma’, the former India captain pulled back the curtain on a small but telling ritual that followed him through his 67-Test career between 2013 and 2024.

Yes, the man who has taken on the world’s best attacks leaned on a box of banana wafers to get through the dark hours.

Test cricket, nerves and no sleep

Rohit has never hidden his affection for the longest format. He called Test cricket his favourite, and that love came with a cost. The format got into his head, sat there, and refused to leave even when the day’s play was done.

“Test match khelna aasaan format nahi hai. Koi bhi format aasaan nahi hota, lekin Test match ke apne alag-alag challenges hote the,” he said on the show, describing how the game lingered long after stumps. The challenges of red-ball cricket, the constant adjustments, the weight of conditions and match situations – all of it combined to keep him wired.

The result was predictable. “Toh Test match ke liye main hamesha nervous rehta tha aur nervousness mein mujhe neend nahi aati thi, toh raat bhar main jaaga rehta tha,” he admitted. A senior opener for India, captain, veteran of dressing rooms across the world – and still, on many nights, just a restless man staring at the ceiling.

The comfort of home in a hotel room

Staying awake brought with it another urge. “Toh aap jaage rehte ho toh kuch na kuch khaane ka mann karta tha,” he said. That is where the comfort food came in.

Rohit did not rely on room service or random snacks. He carried a piece of home with him. “Toh main hamesha mere saath mera comfort food rakhta tha, jo meri mummy hamesha bana ke deti thi, woh tha banana wafers.”

Not just any wafers. These were his mother’s, made to her own method, tailored for a son who needed something familiar when the mind refused to switch off.

“Woh fried nahi hota tha. Meri mummy ke kuch tareeke the, woh bake karti thi usko aur woh main hamesha apne saath leke chalta tha. Toh kabhi bhi mann karta tha toh usse kha leta tha,” Rohit said.

In an era of nutrition plans and high-performance diets, the image is striking: a modern great of Indian cricket quietly reaching into a box of baked banana wafers in some distant hotel, trying to calm Test-match nerves with the taste of his mother’s kitchen.

A human detail behind the numbers

Rohit ended his Test career last year with 4,301 runs from 67 matches at an average of 40.57, backed by 12 centuries and 18 fifties. His highest score, 212, underlined his ability to dominate when he settled in.

Those numbers tell one story – of a late-blooming Test opener who finally cracked the format. The wafers tell another. Behind the hundreds and the averages was a player who felt the weight of every innings so deeply that sleep often deserted him.

In those hours, between the roar of the crowd and the silence of a hotel room, India’s Test captain wasn’t thinking about records. He was just a son, relying on his mother’s baked banana wafers to steady himself before walking out again into the hardest format he loved the most.