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A report by PTI has suggested that current India skipper Rohit Sharma will need to up his game if he wants to keep his position in the longest format of the game.
India face the West Indies in two Test matches from July 12, kicking off their World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle, and the opener will need to score big if he wants to remain as the captain of the team after the West Indian challenge.
A PTI source said that no talks regarding his captaincy has taken place but it is doubtful whether will remain the skipper for the whole duration of the upcoming cycle."These are baseless stuff that Rohit will be removed from captaincy. Yes, whether he will last the whole two-year WTC cycle is a big question as he would be nearly 38 when the third edition ends in 2025," a senior BCCI source in the know of things told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
"As of now, I believe that Shiv Sunder Das and his colleagues will have to take a call after the two Tests and look at his batting form. After West Indies, we have no Tests till December-end when the team travels to South Africa. So there is enough time for selectors to deliberate and take a decision. By then the fifth selector (new chairman) will also join the panel and a decision can be taken, he added.
After Virat Kohli quit Test captaincy in South Africa, Rohit was not keen on taking over the captaincy in the longest format fearing whether his body would take the pressure or not.
"The two top men at that time (former president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah) had to convince him to take up the role once KL Rahul failed to impress as a captain in South Africa," the source said.
Save for a classy 120 against Australia on a challenging Nagpur track, Rohit hasn't exactly scored the kind of runs that is expected from a player of his calibre. Since he took over Test captaincy in 2022, India played 10 Tests and he missed three --- one in England due to COVID-19 and two in Bangladesh due to split webbing.
He scored 390 runs in 7 Tests and had an average of 35.45 in 11 completed innings with a single hundred and no other score above 50.
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