Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar feels that removing Virat Kohli as white-ball captain can be a blessing in disguise as far as his batting is concerned.
BCCI in a surprise announcement on 8th December sacked Virat Kohli as ODI captain and unveiled Rohit Sharma as the new full-time white-ball captain.
By doing this, the governing body took a step forward in adopting the model of split-captaincy in the Indian cricket team as Rohit Sharma will be the skipper in white-ball formats while Virat Kohli will lead the team in Tests.
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Since 2019, Virat Kohli has failed to score a century in international cricket. Although his numbers aren’t that much concerning but it’s fair to say the Indian Test captain hasn’t played up to the expectations of late.
Many feel that Kohli not being the white-ball captain now will ease pressure on him as he can now concentrate more on his batting and return back to scoring ways like he used to do.
Batting great, Sunil Gavaskar also feels that with no burden of limited-overs captaincy, Virat Kohli can return back to his usual way of ‘slamming centuries after centuries’.
"We may see the Virat from two years ago, slamming centuries after centuries," Sunil Gavaskar told Sports Tak.
Sunil Gavaskar also talked about Rohit Sharma’s appointment as India's white-ball captain.
He while citing the example of how senior Indian opener converted his starts into big scores after being named as Mumbai Indians skipper, said that captaining Team India will bring the best out of him.
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"We have also seen that when Rohit Sharma was made captain of Mumbai Indians, he took those scored of 20, 30 and 40 runs and converted them into big scores. When you are captain, you play with a lot more responsibilities.
“Your shot selection gets better. You know you have to set an example and MI reaped the benefits by winning the title five times. It is possible to see Rohit score even more runs once he is the white-ball captain,” he said.
Only time will tell if splitting the captaincy will be a good move or not but as now Rohit Sharma has a staggering record as a captain as in 10 ODI matches he has led India to 8 victories along with 18 wins in 22 T20I games.
Under his captaincy, Team India also went on to win Nidahas Trophy and Asia Cup in 2018. On top of that, he’s the most successful IPL skipper as he has led Mumbai Indians to record five-time title victories.
(Sports Tak inputs)
