Veteran Indian wicketkeeper-batter and commentator, Dinesh Karthik, has given his take on the idea of a split captaincy in Indian cricket, as Rohit Sharma started his Test captaincy tenure with the first Test against Sri Lanka in Mohali on March 4 (Friday).
Notably, Rohit was first made India’s T20I captain after Virat Kohli’s resignation post the T20 World Cup 2021, and then Kohli was removed as ODI captain by BCCI selectors and named Rohit Sharma as the new captain of India’s white-ball team.
Following that, the cricket fraternity believed that the Indian team was following the split captaincy model, but this was just a popular misconception, as Kohli quit the Test captaincy midway through the South Africa Test series, and later the BCCI eventually named Rohit Sharma Test captain as well.
Reacting to the split captaincy idea, Dinesh Karthik backed one captain across all three formats for the Indian cricket team, saying the concept of split captaincy won't work in Indian cricket.
Karthik said on the ICC Review: “A cricketing country like India needs one captain. It is very easy to deal with one captain for all three formats. I remember MS Dhoni saying that split captaincy doesn't work in India that well. We haven't had that over a period of time, so we wouldn't know. But at this point in time when I do see it, I think he (Rohit) is the man. Every time he touched something, it's turned to gold. All the series he has been a part of, he has won convincingly.”
Hailing Rohit’s captaincy so far, the veteran keeper said: “He has shown a lot of tactical nous in the games that he has played. Moved the bowlers around really well, giving confidence to the batters and when they've won a series, giving opportunities to the young guys.”
He signed off by saying, “Sometimes taking a backseat, batting in a position where obviously he has not batted there for a long time. So, he is doing a lot of things right.”
(With PTI Inputs)
