Eventually Rohit Sharma was handed over the captaincy of the Indian team in the white ball format. Rohit, who had already been made the T20 captain, was also appointed the captain of the ODI on 8 December. Virat will remain only the captain of the Test team, while the vice-captain Rahane has been removed and Rohit has been made fit there too.
In such a situation, the question arises as to why the 33-year-old Virat Kohli was replaced by Rohit Sharma, one year older than him, when there were many more deserving young contenders in the team. In an interview, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly is answering some similar questions.
Cricketer-turned-sports administrator Ganguly says, ‘Rohit Sharma has all the qualities to handle the captaincy of the limited overs format. Perhaps this is the reason that went in his favor. He has the talent to rescue the team in adverse situations. His records as captain in IPL are excellent. It was tremendous to get Mumbai Indians five trophies. A few years back, India also won the Asia Cup under the leadership of Rohit Sharma. India’s championship win in the absence of Kohli speaks volumes about Rohit’s talent as a captain and batsman.
It is expected that Rohit Sharma will make his ODI captaincy debut on the tour of South Africa in January next year. Where a three match series is to be played.
Here, Virat Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma expressed surprise over Sourav Ganguly’s recent comments on the change in captaincy. The BCCI president had said that the board had requested Kohli not to step down as T20 captain. Rajkumar said on this statement, ‘I recently read Ganguly’s comments that he did not ask Kohli to step down from T20 captaincy (before the World Cup). I don’t remember anything like that. This statement came as a surprise to me. There are different statements going around.
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