Rohit Sharma becomes the new India captain to win the T20 World Cup for India and joins the prestigious list of Indian players to achieve the feat by earning an ICC trophy, along with Kapil Dev, who made India the world champions for the very first time in 1983, while Dhoni helped India win the T20 and ODI World Cup respectively, in 2007 and 2011.
The way Rohit Sharma led the side for the whole ninth edition of the tournament was excellent. Whether it’s about taking charge of the team in making the field placements or going with a new template of being aggressive at the top order, the leader has led from the front.
The emotion in him, as he was crying before the dressing room, the moment they earned the victory over South Africa at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, showed what that win meant to him as he ended another wait of 17 years of winning that particular T20 World Cup trophy for India.
Rohit Sharma joins elite list to win two T20 World Cups
The group stage of India’s T20 World Cup 2024 campaign was against Ireland, where the captain Rohit Sharma himself guided them to victory, but there were concerns of getting injured before their second game of the series against Pakistan.
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At the same Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, India batted first where Rohit started in an aggressive mode, by nailing the pacer, Shaheen Shah Afridi. Even though he wasn’t able to register a huge score during the game, he captained the team pretty well, in the 120-run defense.
The way he managed his bowlers, and kept the field placement, besides understanding the right balance between defense and aggression, was terrific, and he did that in style.
India were able to somehow manage a six-run win off the game before they met the co-host United States of America in their third game of the competition. Rohit Sharma didn’t enjoy the face-off again, as he had to go back to the dressing room pretty early, although the team went on to register the victory at the end.
India’s only game at the Central Broward Regional Park Turf Stadium in Florida, against Canada, was washed out before they reached the ‘super eight’ stage of the tournament. In Barbados, Rohit again struggled for runs, even though the template was always about going for the skill from the very first over of the game.
The team being on the winning track till the end was helping. When the first ball of the Bangladesh game at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua, took place, on the very first ball of the innings, Rohit Sharma went after the bowler and got a couple of runs.
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The innings weren’t a huge one from him, the goal of them starting with an aggressive mode was clear from the way the captain was batting in the tournament. Then came the two big games. The last game of the second round of the competition found the opener cracking up 92 runs against Australia in St Lucia, and that knock showed how brutal the batting of the Nagpur-born could be.
On a slow, low surface at the Providence Stadium, in Guyana, during the semifinal of the competition, Rohit Sharma scored another half-century. Even though he didn’t fire up during the final of the competition, he had already done his job.
Rohit Sharma finishes this T20 World Cup 2024, as the second-highest run-getter with 257 runs in eight innings, at an average of 36.71, at a strike rate of 156.70, with three half-centuries, and with a best of 92 runs. On Thursday, he kept the trophy in the BCCI cabinet to become the third India captain to reach the feat, and only the fifth player overall to win two T20 World Cups, in the history of the game.