After being appointed India’s new white-ball skipper, Rohit Sharma opened up on how he will go about his business as a leader of the pack.

Rohit took over the reins from Virat Kohli as the new ODI captain as the selectors didn’t want two different captains for the limited-overs formats. His stint as full-time ODI captain will begin with the series against South Africa next month.

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Speaking on the show Backstage with Boria, Rohit said his role as a captain will be to ensure the right combination of players are playing.

“A captain is there to ensure right players are playing, right combination is playing and obviously few tactical things that you need to look after," Rohit stated.

“Captain needs to stand at forefront while performing and for everything else needs to stand at the back.

“The reason I say that is he can make a difference by standing at the back because then he can make sure he puts his hand around everyone, that’s what I meant when I said you have to be least important member of the team."

According to Rohit, a captain only has 20 per cent work on field and 80 per cent off it.

“My role is more on the outside than inside. Give roles to players who are expected to go out there. It happens off the field. Once you are on the field, you have only three hours and little you can change in them and there are 11 guys playing and you have to look after all," he explained.

“On field, you can’t change too much," said the new skipper.

Under Kohli’s leadership, Team India failed to win an ICC trophy, losing the final of 2017 Champions Trophy, semi-final of 2019 World Cup and the Super 12 stage exit from the 2021 T20 World Cup.

While Rohit couldn’t pinpoint on what exactly went wrong in the last three ICC events, he wants the team to prepare for the worst possible situation going forward.

“It was the initial phase where we lost. I want to see that we prepare for the worst like a 10 for 3 situation. That’s how I want to move forward and guys batting at Nos 3, 4, 5 and 6 should be prepared. Nowhere it’s written that from 10/3, you can’t score 190."

“Suppose we are 10/2 in first two overs. What do we do? What is the plan? I want to put ourselves in that situation. We have got some games (ahead of T20 WC) to try and test that."

For Rohit, it has happened twice against Pakistan and once versus New Zealand.

“The quality of bowling (in these matches) has been exceptional. It has happened three times. Hope it does not happen for the fourth time," he said.

(With PTI Inputs)