Rohit was named Test captain during Ganguly's tenure as the BCCI President.
Former BCCI President Sourav Ganguly revealed that Rohit Sharma was hesitant to captain the Indian Test team after Virat Kohli stepped down from his position.
Kohli relinquished the leadership duties of the Test team back in January 2022 after losing the series in South Africa. He had one of the glittering captaincy tenures in Test history, ending as the fourth most successful skipper ever.
After Kohli’s resignation, Rohit was appointed as the new Test captain as he officially took charge from the home series against Sri Lanka. However, it wasn’t an easy task to convince him for the leadership role in the longest format due to workload.
“We always wanted Virat to be captain, but he did not want to continue. And that's what it was. And then obviously Rohit came in, he was captaining Mumbai Indians. He was captaining 50-over T20. We needed a test captain because Virat Kohli was Test captain by then and he finished in South Africa. I always believed that Rohit was a very good captain. So obviously the request from the board, I went to him that you know you should captain in test matches. He was reluctant because of workload,” Ganguly told PTI.
“But then I remember having a conversation with him that, you don't want to finish your career without captaining Indian test matches. So that struck a chord with him, and then he took a couple of days and then he agreed. He's a very adjustable person, very friendly person, if you have conversations with him, he'll agree and accept and do things. And why wouldn't anybody want to be in this test game?,” he added.
Rohit Sharma, 38, ended his Test career last month with 4,301 runs coming from 67 matches at an average of 40.57, including 12 centuries and 18 fifties. He led India in 24 Tests, winning 12 and losing nine games.
After his retirement, Shubman Gill was named the new Test captain and the Punjab lad started his tenure with the five-Test tour of England, which got underway on June 20 in Leeds.