India’s T20 success in Australia has silenced the Rohit Sharma captaincy backers
For two long years there has been a sustained chorus to make Rohit Sharma the captain of the Indian team in one of the formats – especially in white-ball cricket. The voices grew even louder after Rohit helped Mumbai Indians bag their fifth IPL title in Dubai last month.
There is a belief within the system that Rohit Sharma, who thoroughly deserved the Khel Ratna for his five centuries in the 2019 World Cup, is a natural choice for the T20 captaincy. Of course, there are also certain BCCI officials who are of the opposite view; according to them, Rohit still has to bide his time.
But with India convincingly winning the T20 series against Australia Down Under, the move to make Rohit Sharma the T20 captain has been derailed. The team is doing well under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, and the depth in the side seems to have ensured that all the bases are covered.
When Sportskeeda enquired about Rohit Sharma’s chances of becoming the T20 captain, one of the top BCCI officials merely said that the Mumbai cricketer is already the captain when Kohli is not on the scene. Clearly, there is no active push for Rohit being handed the reins any time soon.
The reasoning behind the officials' decision seems fairly sound too. India is doing well at the moment, with the side looking quite settled for next year’s T20 World Cup at home. In other words, there isn’t much time left to change the captaincy and disrupt the core of the team.
If Rohit Sharma is as good a captain as he has been made out to be, he can play the role of MS Dhoni in the current Indian team. When Dhoni gave up the limited overs captaincy in 2017, he still ‘captained’ the side from behind the stumps. He took the all-important DRS calls, helping in deciding the playing XI before a match, and changed the field placements as per the situation - all in sync with Virat Kohli.
Besides, Kohli is currently one of the best batsmen across all formats whereas Rohit is yet to establish his credentials in Tests. It makes sense that Kohli would still be preferred over Rohit as the leader of the team.
Yes, Rohit does have the backing of the powerful Mumbai Indians franchise, which is how he could play the IPL playoffs despite a hamstring injury. But Kohli has the backing of the Indian market on account of his sheer dominance.
Which BCCI selector can step in and say, "Enough is enough, our T20 captain is Rohit Sharma and he will lead India in the World Cup"? As things stand today, that is totally out of the question.