Rohit Sharma’s blistering 76 set the tone for India’s exciting run chase in the Champions Trophy final, but perhaps more crucial was his captaincy, particularly the manner in which he marshalled his spinners.
Match situations in sport are continually evolving. The best captains implement their tactics dynamically, improvising as the need arises. This necessitates an acute understanding of such situations, the strengths and weaknesses of opponents, and how these can be mitigated or exploited by his team.
In the end, India won a hard-fought match and lifted the Champions Trophy for the third time. In a way, this was redemption for India, and Rohit, after the shocking 0-3 whitewash in a home Test series against New Zealand, which in turn had a grim impact on the team’s performance in the Border-Gavaskar series in Australia.
With Rohit at the helm, India have won two ICC tournaments in a space of nine months. In fact, in three successive ICC white-ball tournaments, India have won 23 of 24 matches, losing only the final of the ODI World Cup in 2023. This is extraordinary consistency in limited-over formats, where topsy-turvy results are not uncommon.
While comparisons between teams and players of different eras are always debatable, that the current team is India’s best-ever in white-ball cricket is now being said without much demur. Under M.S. Dhoni, India won the T20 World Cup (2007), ODI World Cup (2011) and Champions Trophy (2013), but several experts and aficionados argue that the current team is more talented and the bionic approach it has shown has redefined global white-ball cricket.
Rohit’s own role in winning two ICC tournaments and raising India’s stock has been enormous. As a batter, he is considered a giant for the pace at which he scores, and the big scores he has accumulated in ODIs. This includes three double centuries.
His Test record is not as spectacular, but his exploits in ODIs put him close to ‘chase maestro’ Virat Kohli, who has the most centuries in the format and is about 4,000 runs shy of Tendulkar’s run tally. As a player, Rohit stands alongside Kohli, Tendulkar and Kapil Dev as India’s best in limited-overs cricket.
His achievements as captain give his cricketing stature more heft. Apart from winning the T20 World Cup and Champions Trophy, he has taken India to the final of the ODI World Cup and the World Test Championship in 2023. Add to this the five IPL titles leading Mumbai Indians, and several experts, including former England captain Nasser Hussain, believe Rohit is the best in contemporary cricket; someone who has reshaped the culture of the Indian dressing room, not just through tactical acumen, but by leading from the front.
Nonetheless, questions about Rohit’s future were swirling through the tournament and even after the final: Will he retire from ODIs, or cricket altogether? This probably compelled the personal intervention to clear the air.
Rohit wound up the post-match news conference with a terse message: “I’m not retiring from one-day cricket, so please don’t go spreading rumours.” The tone and tenor were earthy, in a manner that has come to typify him, but the intent seemed steely.
For more than six months, speculation about Rohit’s future, as also Kohli’s, had been rife. Both had retired from T20Is after the World Cup last year, but ran into plentiful road bumps in the other formats. Soon after the T20 World Cup, the team lost badly in the ODI series in Sri Lanka, and then in the Tests against New Zealand and Australia.
There are no ODI matches for India for almost six months now. The next major assignment is the ODI World Cup, to be played in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia in October-November 2027. By that time, Kohli will be 38 and Rohit 40. To add more names to this cluster, Ravindra Jadeja will be 38 and Mohammed Shami 37. Issues related to the fitness and form of these players will be critical.
The biggest challenge, however, comes from within. India’s cricket talent has seen a massive surge in the past two decades. The supply line is chock-a-block with exceptional young players coming from all parts of the country, all vying for a place in the national team in one or more formats. Staving off such a challenge is the daunting hurdle every player, of whatever vintage, pedigree and past performance and reputation, has to square up to.
Think of Rishabh Pant, maverick match-winner, this IPL’s most-valuable player, unable to find a place in the playing XI in the Champions Trophy. Given how K.L. Rahul performed, it could take some doing for Pant to regain his place. Varun Chakravarthy, a last-minute inclusion for the tournament with no great ODI credentials, would be a first-choice spinner in certain conditions. World-cupper Mohammed Siraj couldn’t retain his place in the ODI squad, and while Shami made a superb return, there are others waiting to step into his shoes.
Rohit and Kohli are not exempt either. Young guns Yashasvi Jaiswal and Abhishek Sharma are straining at the leash to be in the Indian team as an opener or no. 3 in ODIs―positions currently occupied by Rohit and Kohli.
This does not mean that playing at the highest level is defined by age. Maturity, depth of experience and breadth of expertise are invaluable. In the 1975 World Cup, West Indies escaped a crisis in the final against Australia because of the superb supporting knock played by 40-year-old Rohan Kanhai while Clive Lloyd was on a rampage. In the 1992 tournament, Pakistan’s triumph was masterminded by Imran Khan, then 40. In 2011, when India won the World Cup, the team’s highest run-getter in the tournament was 38-year-old Tendulkar.
India’s brigade of veteran stars is ageing fast, but not over the hill yet. The focus on Rohit has been greater compared with Kohli and Jadeja because of the superior fitness of the latter two. But Rohit has not been a liability to the side in any way, as his performances suggest.
One way to extend a career, as some have done in the past, is to give up captaincy, which can be very demanding in the dressing room and subject to merciless scrutiny from the outside. Sunil Gavaskar did so after winning the World Championship of Cricket in 1985, and his last couple of years in international cricket were hugely rewarding. Similarly, Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, who gave up captaincy to concentrate on batting, took their careers several notches higher.
A day after announcing that he wasn’t retiring, a more circumspect Rohit said he would take a call on his future seeing how the situation evolves. This is sensible. For now, the attention shifts to the IPL, which will tell him―and others of his vintage―about how the body and mind are coping with playing at the highest level. This could determine his future in red-ball cricket (a five-Test series against England comes up in June), which in turn could be the bridge to his continuation in ODIs.
Till then, in the few days he has before donning the Mumbai blue, Rohit can sit back and enjoy the fact that he was the man who led the Indian team out of the ICC trophy drought of 11 years, and kickstarted what could be a lengthy run of white-ball domination.