Former India pacer Ashish Nehra believes Virat Kohli should continue leading the side in all formats as he said the time is not right to give Rohit Sharma the captaincy of the T20I team.
Rohit Sharma once again proved his captaincy credentials by leading India to series win over Windies with a match to spare. Before the start of the series, Windies held a 5-2 win-loss ratio over India. However, stats and history counted for little as Rohit led from the front to guide India to series win over the reigning World T20 champions.
India won the first game by five-wicket before winning the second by 71 runs. Rohit, who had failed to get going in the series-opener, scored a sublime unbeaten ton in the second game. In doing so, he became the first player to score for T20I centuries. He also surpassed Virat Kohli to become India’s leading run-scorer in T20Is.
The latest exploit has only enhanced Rohit’s reputation as captain. He first led India during last year’s home series against Sri Lanka. Rohit had led India to series win over Sri Lanka in both ODIs and T20Is. He then guided the team to title in the Nidahas Trophy. The Mumbai star then captained the team to a historic seventh Asia Cup title before the latest series win.
Not surprisingly, there are calls from several quarters to relieve Virat Kohli of T20 captaincy and give the responsibility to Rohit. However, Ashish Nehra believes Kohli should still lead the team in all the formats.
“No I don’t think so. That’s not the right thing to do at this point of time. See Virat Kohli has also done so well because what he has done for India in all three formats and it will be unfair on him. Who knows? You are asking me this right now. At the moment Virat should continue leading the team,” Nehra said while speaking to Cricket Next.
“But who knows after one or two years? Cricket is that kind of a game where Virat Kohli might say I want to do captaincy only in Test cricket. I am not the right person to answer this question. This is not in my hands and only selectors can decide it,” the 39 year-old added.
Ashish Nehra also batted for the Indian team to test their bench strength for the last and final game in Chennai. The former pacer said the likes of Shahbaz Nadeem, Washington Sundar and Shreyas Iyer should be given a game in the final T20I.