India endured a massive 209-run defeat at the hands of Australia in the WTC 2023 final.
This result meant India's underwhelming record in ICC tournaments continued, with their last victory coming way back in 2013. India were defeated by New Zealand in the inaugural WTC final two years ago.
Amid the scrutiny, former South African skipper Graeme Smith has said that India head coach Rahul Dravid should be given a “fair opportunity” to rebuild the team.
“The biggest challenge in India for a leader is balancing those squads, balancing your tour schedules, the different formats, and those are some of the biggest decisions that are coming ahead of Rahul and his selection team. What do those squads look like, how do they move those teams forward,” Smith was quoted as saying by Times of India.
“He’s a quality man and a quality performer. He’s shown it right through as a coach. So, you’ve got to give him a fair opportunity now to kind of rebuild India,” he added.
India skipper Rohit Sharma is going through a lean patch with the bat lately. After enduring a dismal IPL 2023 campaign, he registered scores of 15 and 43 across the two innings of the WTC final against Australia.
According to a PTI report, Rohit’s Test captaincy might come under threat after the upcoming West Indies tour if he fails to produce impressive batting performances.
Commenting on Rohit, Smith said: “One of the biggest challenges of a captain is your own personal performance. The pressure of a leader never goes away. Rohit probably needs to just refresh. His own form hasn’t been probably at a level consistently. We look at the IPL over a number of years now and obviously the WTC final…he is having a bit of a rough patch and often that personal performance can just settle things down a little bit.”
“No one is criticizing his captaincy or leadership style. It’s just obviously on the personal performance side, if he can get some really good scores behind him, it takes a lot of that pressure away,” he further remarked.
India will begin their WTC 2023-2025 cycle with a two-match Test series against West Indies, slated to get underway on July 12 in Dominica.