The BCCI on Wednesday made a major announcement that is bound to change the face of the game of cricket in India. In the bombshell declaration, the country’s cricket board handed the captaincy of the ODI team to Rohit Sharma, the current T20 Captain. Virat Kohli was until this point the skipper of both the Test and ODI sides, having earlier relinquished the T20 captaincy after the ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup in October.
New Era In Indian Cricket Begins With Sharma’s Appointment
There were talks about the future of Virat Kohli after Team India exited the T20 World Cup in the group stages. The board selectors had made Rohit Sharma the skipper right after Kohli stepped down from the captain’s role after a string of poor outings by the side under him.
What was predicted back in October has now come full circle. The choice of the selectors in handing Sharma the reins of the ODI team comes after the Indian side won the T20 series against New Zealand with a scoreline of 3-0 last month. With five IPL titles under his belt, Rohit Sharma was always a natural choice to replace Virat Kohli.
BCCI Optimistic With Choice Of ODI Skipper
The BCCI tweeted on its official site on Wednesday about the decision to make Rohit Sharma the new ODI captain. Its tweet reads, “The All-India Senior Selection Committee also decided to name Mr Rohit Sharma as the Captain of the ODI and T20 teams going forward.”
The official announcement ended Kohli’s long run as captain of the ODI side for almost five years. He took over the captaincy from MS Dhoni back in 2017 and has subsequently emerged as the ODI skipper with the highest win percentage of 70.43. This places him above all other captains the country has had so far. Out of a total of 95 ODI matches that Kohli captained India, 65 ended as victories. In the all-time list of players who have led the country the most number of times, Kohli sees himself on fourth, after MS Dhoni, Mohammad Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly.
This came after the board made the list of players that have been selected for the upcoming tour of South Africa public. Sharma’s first outing as a new ODI skipper will take place in January 2022 during the 3-match ODI Series against South Africa in South Africa. The board also announced that Rohit Sharma would replace Ajinkya Rahane as the vice-captain of the Test side. This is a clear indication that the board has started favouring Rohit Sharma over all the other senior players of the Indian team.
Test Squad For Tour Of South Africa Includes 18 Players
India will begin their tour of South Africa with a 3-match Test series commencing on Boxing Day, December 26. It will be played in Centurion. The second and the final matches would be played in Johannesburg and Cape Town respectively. The BCCI made public the list of 18 players for the Test series against South Africa on Wednesday.
Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma (vc), KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuman Vihari, Rishabh Pant (wk), Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Jayant Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Mohammad Siraj
The board added, “The following players were not available for selection due to injuries and are currently undergoing rehabilitation: Ravindra Jadeja, Shubhman Gill, Axar Patel, Rahul Chahar.”
Rohit Sharma’s Record As ODI Skipper Speaks For Itself
Over the years, Rohit Sharma has stood in as skipper of the ODI side a total of 10 times. He has won 8 of those 10 matches. He was the captain of the side that had won the Asia Cup back in the UAE in 2018. In that competition, India had fared brilliantly and had dominated the tournament by winning all the league matches.
It will be interesting to see how the new combo of Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid fare together in the ODI format of the game.
The two have already worked together in the recently-concluded T20 series against the Kiwis and had produced some fantastic results. The cricket calendar has two major ICC events on its page- the T20 World Cup in Australia in 2022 and the ODI World Cup in India in 2023. With such a short time to prepare for the mega-events of world cricket, the board has taken a shrewd decision to shake things up. All eyes would be on the tour of South Africa where people would get to see Rohit Sharma taking full-time charge of the ODI side.
