Former Pakistani cricketer Salman Butt said that BCCI’s decision to name Rohit Sharma as a skipper in ODIs doesn’t surprise him.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday (8th December) surprised everyone and in a succinct social media post announced Rohit Sharma as the new skipper in ODIs.
This means that the Indian cricket team will now adopt the model of split captaincy with Rohit Sharma leading in white-ball format and Virat Kohli captaining in Tests.
Notably, earlier some reports suggested that Virat Kohli’s captaincy in ODIs is under clouds after he decided to step down as an Indian T20I skipper as selectors were not in favor of having different skippers in two limited-overs formats.
The decision to name Rohit Sharma as the Indian ODI skipper made fans go berserk and gave mixed reactions. Many pundits also gave their opinions on the same and Salman Butt is the latest entrant who shared his views on the bandwagon.
Speaking in a video posted on his YouTube Channel, Salman Butt said that the decision to name Rohit Sharma as a skipper in ODIs was on the cards as it doesn’t make any sense to have different captains in two white-ball formats.
He pointed out that Team India plays fewer T20Is as compared to ODIs and Tests and to reduce the workload of Virat Kohli, BCCI had to give the white-ball captaincy to Rohit Sharma.
"This doesn't come as a surprise to me. It was on the cards. It doesn't make sense anyway if he's only the T20I captain. It makes sense to segregate between white between red ball and white ball to reduce the pressure on a certain player.
“India doesn't not play a lot T20Is; they mainly play ODIs and Tests. In order to reduce workload (off Kohli), the entire white-ball captaincy had to go one way," Salman Butt said.
Butt further explained that with no pressure of white-ball captaincy, Virat Kohli’s performance as a batter will get better as he was extremely overloaded.
Explaining the ever-lasting pressure on the skipper, he cited how for Indian fans Virat Kohli's half-centuries "didn’t amount to anything". He remarked that in this sense, Rohit Sharma taking some of that burden is "perfect".
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“Like I said, there is no element of surprise here. It's a good thing because you will see Virat Kohli's performance getting better because he was extremely overloaded. And as it is, the volume of cricket that India plays is very high.
“The pressure is even higher when all eyes are on him and people only talk about him not scoring runs. For people, him scoring 50s did not amount to anything. I reckon this was a perfect exchange with Rohit Sharma,” he said.
