Sacking Virat Kohli as ODI captain has divided the opinions of the cricketing world. While some experts see it as well deserved opportunity for Rohit Sharma, while others ain’t much happy with how Kohli has been treated in this saga.
Former Indian player and ex-BCCI selector Venkatapathy Raju also expressed his views regarding this matter, saying it could be a way to revive Virat Kohli- the batsman who termed as a run machine not long ago.
Former left-arm spinner feels that relieving from the job of captaincy would be the idea to free up the batsman in him. It is popularly known that he hasn’t scored an international century since Nov 2019 but his ODI numbers haven’t been that bad. Since the beginning of 2020, he played only 12 ODIs and scored 7 fifties out of those 12. It’s just that converting those 50s into 100s has been an issue for him of late.
Virat Kohli’s Bat Might Do The Talking Once Again Asserts Venkatpathy Raju
“Of late, the match-winner in Kohli was missing. So, this may be an attempt to find the match-winner in him again. And Rohit has led India with distinction whenever he has been given the opportunity. Probably, he will play more freely now,” Raju told Mid-Day.
In his 95 ODIs as captain, Virat Kohli scored 5449 runs with an average of 72.65 and a strike rate of 98.28. His tally of 21 hundreds as captain is only second to Ricky Ponting (22) but Ponting captained 135 more ODIs than Virat. So captaincy always brought the best version of his batting. Even in Test cricket his batting average is 55.36 which includes 20 hundreds (only second to Graeme Smith’s 25)
Meanwhile MSK Prasad, another former chairman of selectors, feels that the decision to appoint Rohit as captain in both white ball formats it to avoid confusion and give him enough time to prepare for World Cup 2023.
“More than the feeling of sacking, I think this was the more logical thought. We are playing only seven or eight ODI games in the next season. So, probably, the selectors would have felt that one captain for both formats because T20 and 50-over players are almost similar barring a few here and there,” Prasad told Mid-Day.
“So, in order to avoid any confusion with the style of captaincy, they [the selectors] would have thought of giving Rohit the captaincy for white-ball cricket. Although Rohit would be leading the T20 team, he would have his ideas as far as identifying the core players [is concerned].”
Team India is all set to tour South Africa for a three-match Test series and a three-match ODI series. It will be Virat’s first series as a batter after handling the limited-overs captaincy for almost 5 years and the wait for his 71st international century might just come to an end.