Former India opener Sunil Gavaskar has lauded Rohit Sharma’s leadership skills in the ongoing Asia Cup. Rohit was named the Indian captain after Virat Kohli was rested from the 14th edition of Asia Cup. Sharma has been impressive as a captain thus far, winning all the matches in the tournament and guiding Team India to the final.
In his column for TOI, Gavaskar firstly highlighted the facets of great teams by giving the examples of Clive Lloyd's West Indies side and the great Australian team of the 1990s.
“The best of teams just go on to the next delivery as they know, in a team game, all eleven can’t be successful and there is bound to be the odd failure. How to carry that failure and make him a part of the team’s success is the key. The great West Indies teams of the past did that splendidly with the phlegmatic skipper Clive Lloyd displaying no emotion with an error on the field. The same with the ’90s Australian team who bonded so well with each other that, if one of them dropped a catch, they would have a go at the batsman instead for being lucky,” Gavaskar wrote.
He then went on to draw parallels between Rohit and Lloyd, saying that the former barely shows his emotions on the field even when a teammate spills a catch or misfields.
“India’s skipper Rohit Sharma is doing the Clive Lloyd thing by hiding his emotions as he smiles and turns back to his fielding position. This does not put any pressure on the person who dropped the catch or misfielded and makes him want to give an extra effort,” Gavaskar noted.
India has played four matches in the Asia Cup 2018 thus far. Except for a mini-scare in the opening match against Hong Kong, the Men in Blue have registered emphatic victories in rest of the clashes.
A rusty Indian side beat Hong Kong by 26 runs but they came back strong and demolished Pakistan in the group-stage by eight wickets. In the Super Four stage, the Men in Blue thrashed Bangladesh by seven wickets while they humiliated Pakistan by nine wickets on Sunday.
Rohit Sharma and company will now face Afghanistan in their next Super Four match at the Dubai International Stadium on Tuesday (September 25).
