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India men's team head coach Gautam Gambhir has defended captain Rohit Sharma's approach in the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy 2025. Many had urged Rohit to play beyond 10 overs against Australia but he departed in the eighth over trying to play a sweep shot against young left-arm spinner Cooper Connolly. Gambhir is happy with Rohit's 'fearless' and 'courageous' approach and said that he is not looking at his averages but the impact he has had in the game.
“See, the final of the Champions Trophy is coming up. What can I say before that? If your captain plays with such tempo, it just gives a very good signal to the dressing room that we want to be absolutely fearless and courageous. You evaluate (a player’s performance) with runs, we evaluate with the impact. That’s the difference. You evaluate by the stats, we evaluate by impact," Gambhir said in the post-match press conference.
“As journalists, as experts, you only look at the numbers and the averages. But as a coach, as a team, we don’t look at numbers or averages. If the brand of cricket we are trying to play and the captain puts his hand up first, nothing better than that inside the dressing room," he added.
Rohit was given two lifelines in the first three overs. He hit Nathan Ellis off a six and on the next ball was dropped by Connolly at backward point. He was batting on 13. On the last ball of the third over, Marnus Labuschagne dropped the catch off Ben Dwarshuis' bowling while running back from mid-off. In the eighth over, Rohit departed after scoring 28 runs from 29 balls.
Rohit's statistics
So far, the 37-year-old scored 104 runs from four innings at an average of 26 in the Champions Trophy 2025. His strike rate is 107.22 which is second-best for India in the tournament, just behind all-rounder Hardik Pandya's 108.
Rohit's last century came against England in the three-ODI series at home before the Champions Trophy 2025. He scored a match-winning 119 in the run chase.
