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India's newly recruited all-format skipper Rohit Sharma kicked off his regime on a winning note. Firstly, Rohit whitewashed West Indies 3-0 in the thee-match ODI series and then went on to clean sweep the three-match T20.
Rohit will look to make the best of this opportunity to scale India to newer heights. But leading the team in all three formats won't be an easy task for him, given his injury record due to which he had to miss the entire South Africa tour which India badly lost.
Rohit's good friend as well as veteran wicketkeeper-batter Dinesh Karthik has talked about the challenges that the star opener will be facing after recently being appointed as India’s all-format captain. At the same time, Karthik has made it clear that the 34-year-old is well ahead of the game when it comes to tactics.
“I think Rohit is very astute tactically. And the amount of cricket he will play will define how consistently he can play all three formats. He is at a place where there is a lot of cricket to be played throughout the year. That’s going to be a big challenge for someone like Rohit. He is a quality captain… there’s no doubt about that. When it comes to tactics, we saw in this game (third T20I against West Indies) that he is well ahead of the game,” Karthik said.
“He rotated bowlers and brought Avesh Khan at the right time. Also, Shardul gave away 18 runs in his first over but finished with figures of 4/33. He (Rohit) is somebody who understands bowlers and what to do with them. With Rohit, the question is always going to be: ‘How much cricket is he going to play?’,” he further added.
The explosive opener has the experience of leading India to a couple of multi-nation tournament wins. The Nidhas Trophy tri-series featuring Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in March 2018 and the ODI Asia Cup later that year. He was the stand-in captain as regular skipper Virat Kohli was rested on both occasions.
India’s next assignment will be against Sri Lanka. The three-match T20I contest begins Thursday, which will be followed by a two-match Test series.
Test Squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Mayank Agarwal, Priyank Panchal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, KS Bharat, Ravichandran Ashwin (subject to fitness), Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah (vice captain), Md. Shami, Md. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Saurabh Kumar.
T20I squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Bumrah (vice captain), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Md. Siraj, Sanju Samson (wicket keeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Avesh Khan.
