With the World Cup 2023 set to begin in India, India Skipper Rohit Sharma will be facing new challenges in the upcoming tournament.
Rohit Sharma sets record over Captaincy
Rohit Sharma has been captaining the side since Virat Kohli stepped down. India had a diverse history of youngsters captaining the side. The Indian cricketers Ganguly, MS Dhoni, and Virat Kohli were given the captaincy at the age of 27,26, and 27 respectively while Rohit Sharma took over the captaincy at the age of 34.
He has captained the side in the past and he was the successful IPL captain having five titles in IPL. However, the skipper didn’t guarantee victory despite India being the favorite to win the World Cup.
“Yes, we have not won; it’s fine. I’m not a person who overthinks and puts myself in a tough place where I’m not able to make a decision. England started winning now; in 2019 they won the World Cup after so many years. It happens. Australia is the only consistent team who have won. After 2007, they won the ODI World Cup in 2015. They won the T20 World Cup in Dubai,” said Rohit Sharma.
“I don’t have an answer for it (Will India win the World Cup). How can I say that now? All I can hope is that the team is in a good space. Everybody is fit and fine. That’s all I can hope for. I cannot say beyond this. Space is such an important factor and it’s a very key thing now.”
“Obviously, you want to be at your peak for this, say when you are 26-27. But you cannot always get what you want. You are talking about the Indian captaincy and there have been stalwarts in the Indian team. Many more players deserved to be the captain of the team. I had to wait for my turn and that’s absolutely fair enough. The guys before, Virat was before me, so was MS (Dhoni),” he said.
“Just look at the names that are missed out: Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag … these are all stalwarts of Indian cricket. Not to forget Yuvraj Singh. He never captained India. Yuvraj has been such a match-winner for India, he should have been the captain at some stage but he didn’t get it.”
“That’s life. I got it now and I am grateful for it. I would rather have it when I know how to captain a team, when I know what is required and all. Rather than when I don’t know the ABCD of captaincy. So in that respect, this is good.”
“A team needs to play 11 games to reach the World Cup final. Last time we played this format was in 2019, but to play 11 ODIs in one-and-half months is not easy. It’s a long World Cup. We don’t want any of our pacers to break down. Hence we have selected more of them.”
With the completion of Warmup games, Indian team is headed towards Chennai where they will be playing their first World Cup match against Australia on October 8 at MA Chidambaram Stadium.
