The newly appointed Indian white-ball skipper Rohit Sharma has made it clear that it doesn’t matter how many runs or how many hundreds one scores, it comes down to winning championships at the end of the day because that’s what the game is all about.
While India were a very successful team in bilateral games under their previous white-ball captain Virat Kohli, they didn’t quite achieve the same degree of success in ICC tournaments. They got to the knockout stages of the Champions Trophy and ODI World Cup in 2017 and 2019 respectively but got eliminated from the group round of the recent T20 World Cup in the UAE, post which BCCI activated a change in white-ball captaincy and elevated Rohit to the position of the skipper.
Rohit Sharma, who has won 5 titles in the IPL with Mumbai Indians, will now lead the Indian team in the next two or three ICC tournaments and he is keen to give the players a clear role definition. It has happened in the last couple of tournaments that India’s top order played well in group games and faltered in knockouts. Since the middle order didn’t have that much of game time throughout the tournament, they couldn’t handle the pressure when they were asked to do the job.
According to Rohit, the players need to be ready for that kind of situation even if they have not batted much in the tournament. It’s very much possible to lose a few quick wickets at the top of the order in a high-pressure game. Unless and until, the middle order is ready to handle that kind of a scenario and the pressure that comes with it, winning any tournament is difficult.
Rohit Sharma (in backstage with @BoriaMajumdar) said "When you play the sport, you have to achieve the best, in cricket it's ICC tournament so whatever runs or hundreds me or anyone scores it doesn't matter, only thing matter is winning the championship".
— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) December 9, 2021
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Rohit Sharma achieved a 3-0 result against NZ in his first series as India’s full-time captain
Rohit, who has already started his journey as India’s full-time T20I skipper, was in conversation with Boria Majumdar on his new show Backstage with Boria where he emphasised on preparing as a team keeping a tournament in mind and what kind of scenarios might unfold in a tournament. The 34-year-old, when he took over recently against New Zealand, was at the top of his game straight away as he dominated the visitors and achieved a 3-0 result with the Indian T20I side.
Going ahead, however, it will be interesting to see Rohit’s relationship with the former Indian captain Virat Kohli who, despite his insistence that he wanted to lead India in ODI cricket, has been removed from his position.
