'Team First' Attitude Behind Rohit Sharma's Success As Captain, Says Irfan Pathan

Rohit Sharma has pretty much proved himself as a captain thanks to his exploits in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The Mumbai Indians captain is the most successful captain in the history of the IPL as far as winning the league is concerned.

Since taking charge of the team in 2013, Rohit Sharma has completely changed the fortunes of the team. After failing to win the league in the first five seasons, Mumbai Indians have won an impressive four IPL titles in the last seven seasons under Rohit Sharma.

Irfan Pathan decodes Rohit Sharma’s success:

Former India bowler Irfan Pathan recently tried to decode the reason behind Rohit Sharma’s success as captain. Pathan said that his former India teammate has a very calm head on his shoulder. He also said that the failure to make it to India’s squad for 2011 World Cup motivated Rohit Sharma.

“Whenever you talk to Rohit Sharma, he used to always talk about sensible things, he used to always talk about working hard and he used to always talk about the team first as well, that is why you see some of the results he got at the captain of the Mumbai Indians team. He got the beating of not playing the world cup and then came back really hard because of a strong mindset after 2012,” he said on Star Sports show Cricket Connected.

Pathan also praised Rohit’s ability to make his batting look so easy. The former cricketer compared Rohit to the domestic cricket legend Wasim Jaffer, saying they are both players of the same type – who make it look very easy.

“Lot of people are mistaken when they see a guy who has lot of time and he is slightly more relaxed than compared to Rohit. Then you say he needs to work hard! Same things were said about Wasim Jaffer, when you look at his aura, when he used to run he used to run very relaxed, when he used to bat he had lot of time and we used to think – why isn’t he working hard – but actually, he was working really hard. Similarly with Rohit, from outside we used to think he might need to work more harder, he might need to put more application,” said Pathan.

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