Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli 'dragging team down': Sanjay Manjrekar blames 'Hero-worshipping' for India's downfall

India's veteran cricketers Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been under severe pressure after their poor returns in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. Both the players have been scrutinized from different corners of the cricketing world.

Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has spoken up on these two senior players of the team and mentioned that they are dragging their team down with their performances. He also blamed the performances of these two players for India's poor performance in the Test series against Australia.

Manjrekar spoke about India's famous "hero-worshipping culture" and claimed that it is affecting the team in a negative way. He blamed this culture as the main reason behind India's decline in the last few months.

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Sanjay Manjrekar blames Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli for "dragging the team down"

While writing for his column in Hindustan Times, Sanjay Manjrekar blamed India's hero-worshipping culture as the main reason for the team's performance in Tests in the last two series. He believes that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are dragging the team down with their performances now.

He claimed that such culture has been in Indian cricket forever and even reminded the time when the same used to happen when players like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid were in the mix.

“The one foremost reason behind this is the icon culture we have in India and the hero worship of certain players. Be it 2011-12 or now, it’s the same scenario that gets played out," Manjrekar wrote in his column.

"Iconic players featuring prominently doing the opposite of what they did their entire careers, thereby dragging the team down with their diminished performances. When it comes to the big players, we as a country are just not able to stay rational,” he added.

The former India cricketer explains how the cricketing logic goes out of the window when it comes to the careers of iconic players. According to him, the selectors are also afraid of dropping such players from the team.

“Cricketing logic goes out of the window and then the selectors hope the player leaves on his own so that they don’t look like the villains who brutally ended the career of a great who millions of fans worship. They just fear the backlash.”

Sanjay Manjrekar asks Ajit Agarkar to take final decision

Sanjay Manjrekar further asked the selection committee led by Ajit Agarkar to take tough decisions and questioned Rohit Sharma's ability to survive in international cricket in the future.

“Does Rohit Sharma still have the potential to make up for all his recent failures? I would like to think that the current selection committee has a pretty good idea about this," he argued.

“But now comes the tough part—can the committee actually take a tough decision in sync with their observations? For Mr Ajit Agarkar to take a pure cricketing decision no matter who the player is, we have to make his job easier,” he explained.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's recent numbers

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been going through bad form with the bat since India's T20 World Cup 2024 win in June 2024. Both the players retired from the T20Is after India's title win. The Men in Blue didn't play many ODIs as a lot of Test cricket was played.

India played five home Tests against Bangladesh and New Zealand in which both Rohit and Kohli failed miserably. Rohit Sharma scored 133 runs at an average of 13.30 while Virat Kohli scored 192 runs at an average of 21.33.

Their poor form continued in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as both of them were dominated by the world-class Australian bowling attack. Rohit scored 31 runs in three Tests at an average of 6.20 while Virat Kohli fared slightly better with 190 runs at an average of 23.75 but was still under par.