Rohit Sharma, one of the greatest Indian cricketers of all-time, got picked for India’s upcoming ODI tour to Australia, but in a shocking turn of events, the selectors decided to appoint Shubman Gill as captain of the side in his place. The 38-year-old last captained India in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 against New Zealand, defeating the Black Caps in Dubai to secure consecutive trophies for the country.
With that, it was widely expected that Rohit Sharma will continue leading Team India in ODI format despite the ICC Cricket World Cup still two years away and him already retiring from Tests and T20Is over the past year or so. But the Indian selection committee had other ideas in regards to the leadership in the ODIs, with Chief
Selector Ajit Agarkar categorically stating that Rohit Sharma and fellow stalwart Virat Kohli are “non-committal” about playing in the ODI World Cup in 2027 in South Africa.
The decision from the Indian selection committee has effectively ended the illustrious tenure of Rohit Sharma as captain of the national team in all formats of the game. The crowning achievement of the Nagpur-born cricketer as the leader of the Men in Blue came last year when he helped them secure their first ICC trophy in a decade, ending the drought after beating South Africa in the final of the T20 World Cup in Bridgetown and backing it up with the Champions Trophy title, the second biggest ODI tournament, earlier this year.
Rohit Sharma’s captaincy record for India
|
Formats |
Matches |
Wins |
Losses |
Draws |
Tied |
No Results |
Win Percentage |
|
Test |
24 |
12 |
9 |
3 |
0 |
- |
50.00 |
|
ODI |
56 |
42 |
12 |
- |
1 |
1 |
75.00 |
|
T20I |
62 |
49 |
12 |
- |
1 |
0 |
79.03 |
While the Test captaincy didn’t quite yield desired results, in the ODI and T20I formats, Rohit Sharma put together insane stats as the Indian skipper, winning at least 75% matches. With the aforementioned captaincy record in ODIs, the Hitman finds himself in the illustrious list of captains, namely Clive Lloyd, Ricky Ponting, MS Dhoni, and Virat Kohli, among others, not only in terms of stats, but the overall impact on the Indian cricket team over time.
Although Rohit Sharma wasn’t able to take India to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 title at home despite winning 10 matches in a row heading into final against Australia, he changed the template of ODI batting in the country for the better, which translated into T20I format with the ICC T20 World Cup title the next year. Now, his role without captaincy in the Indian ODI setup will be to help the new captain Shubman Gill adjust to the leadership in the format and achieve decent results from the get-go.
