Rohit Sharma bagged a massive feat when he took the field to lead Team India in the second ODI against England in Cuttack on February 9. Rohit Sharma might have been struggling with his bat but despite this he achieved a big captaincy milestone. Rohit Sharma apparently joined Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni in an elite group of Indian captains. Having returned to the field in Nagpur for his first game of 2025, Rohit has been India's full-time ODI captain since December 2021 and has enjoyed considerable success, with his sights now set on winning the Champions Trophy.
Rohit Sharma bags big captaincy milestone in 2nd ODI against England
In this second ODI, Rohit made history by becoming just the third Indian captain to lead the nation in 50 ODIs and 50 T20Is. This marked his 50th ODI as India's captain. His journey to this milestone began with a stand-in captaincy role, and four years later, he has now led the team in 50 ODIs. He has also captained India in 62 T20Is. Rohit's leadership in white-ball cricket has been remarkably successful.
Notably, India made it to the ODI World Cup 2023 final and clinched T20 World Cup 2024 title in June 2024 under Rohit Sharma's captaincy. However, Rohit subsequently retired from the shortest format after ending India's 11-year-long ICC trophy drought. MS Dhoni was the first Indian captain to achieve the milestone of leading in 50 ODIs and 50 T20Is, ultimately captaining in 200 ODIs and 72 T20Is. Dhoni holds the distinction of being the first Indian captain to win a 50-over World Cup, and he also led a young Indian team to a stunning victory in the 2007 T20 World Cup. Virat Kohli finished his captaincy career with India having led in 95 ODIs and 50 T20Is. Despite his leadership, India did not win an ICC title during his tenure. He relinquished the T20I captaincy, and the selectors later removed him from the ODI captaincy.
Looking ahead, Rohit has his sights set on winning the 2025 Champions Trophy. India narrowly missed out on title triumph in the World Cup 2023 final, losing to Australia, and also fell short against the same opponent in the 2023 World Test Championship final. Rohit's future as captain may well depend on India's performance in this upcoming ICC event.
For now Rohit's main goal would be to win the ongoing ODI series against England in a pre-cursor to upcoming Champions Trophy 2025 which is set to start from February 19.
India's playing XI:
Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (w), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakravarthy
England's playing XI:
Philip Salt (w), Ben Duckett, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jos Buttler (c), Liam Livingstone, Jamie Overton, Gus Atkinson, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Saqib Mahmood