Virat Kohli Was Stripped Of Captaincy So He Could Become A Match-Winner Again, Feels Venkatapathy Raju

The Indian cricket fraternity was shocked to its core when the BCCI stripped Virat Kohli as captain of the Indian ODI team and named Rohit Sharma as the new ODI and T20I captain going forward. Rohit was also named the vice-captain of the Indian team in Test format.

Kohli captained India in ODIs from 2017-2021 winning 65 of 95 matches with a winning percentage of over 70. He also made more than 5400 runs, but his inability to score a century in either of the three international formats and failure to win an ICC Trophy for India led to BCCI selectors replacing him as the captain.

Former India spinner Venkatapathy Raju feels now that Kohli has been relieved of his captaincy duties in limited-overs cricket, it could well signal the revival of his free-flowing best with the bat. Despite scoring half-centuries, Kohli has not scored a century since November of 2019, making it a total of 57 innings across formats that he has not registered a century.

“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.

Logical To Replace Virat Kohli As ODI Captain With Rohit Sharma Given India Plays Only 7-8 Odis In 2022: MSK Prasad

Former chairman of selectors MSK Prasad feels that the decision to appoint Rohit makes sense given the very few ODIs the Indian cricket team has lined up over the next year. This will also give Rohit a chance to find players who can be the core of his team going into the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia.

“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 [would be better] because T20 and 50-over players are almost similar barring a few here and there,” Prasad told Mid-Day.

He further added: “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].”

Rohit Sharma’s first series as full-time ODI captain will be against South Africa which will be played in January 2022.

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