Senior cricketer and now a revered pundit Dinesh Karthik is having reservations about the longevity of Rohit Sharma as India’s all-format captain. Sharma, who had earlier replaced Kohli as the limited-overs skipper, was last week announced as the Test captain as well, completing the leadership transition into a new era.
However, there are challenges to this. While, as Karthik asserted, there is no doubt over the tactical nous of the 5-time IPL winning captain, Sharma’s fitness, especially his hamstrings, has been a talking point used against having him as the all-format leader.
The World Test Championship is in progress, Sharma and Dravid also are building teams for the next two ICC white-ball World Cups, and he’s also the captain of Mumbai Indians in what will now be a lengthened IPL with 10 teams. Sharma has his task cut out in the new role.
Dinesh Karthik, who is also Rohit’s close friend, said that the only major challenge for Rohit is to keep his body and mind fit for the immense amount of high-level cricket he has to play in the two years to come.
“I think Rohit is very astute tactically. And the amount of cricket he will play will define how consistently he can play all three formats. He is at a place where there is a lot of cricket to be played throughout the year. That’s going to be a big challenge for someone like Rohit. He is a quality captain… there’s no doubt about that,” Karthik said while speaking with Cricbuzz.
“When it comes to tactics, we saw in this game (third T20I against West Indies) that he is well ahead of the game. He rotated bowlers and brought Avesh Khan at the right time. Also, Shardul gave away 18 runs in his first over but finished with figures of 4/33.
“He (Rohit) is somebody who understands bowlers and what to do with them. With Rohit, the question is always going to be: ‘How much cricket is he going to play?’,” he further added.
Rohit Sharma has had a perfect start to his full-time captaincy stint with whitewashes over New Zealand (T20I series) followed by West Indies (ODI and T20I series). India next host Sri Lanka for 3 T20Is and 2 Tests.
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