Legendary India cricketer Sunil Gavaskar feels that the selection commitee has made the right choise by choosing Shubman Gill as the side's new ODI captain ahead of the three-match assignment against Australia. Gavaskar believes that the Men in Blue need a young leader and pointed out that even if Rohit Sharma was kept as the skipper, he wouldn't have been able to play many matches before the 2027 World Cup as the team doesn't play many ODIs in comparison to Tests and T20Is.
"I agree with the selection committee here as we need to look forward to the 2027 World Cup. We need a young captain and we don't even know if Rohit will be fit to play the World Cup. He is only active in the one-day format and has already retired from both Tests and T20Is. And if we look at the international calendar, then we can see that India will not playing much ODIs in comparison to Tests and T20Is. Even if Rohit plays 5-7 matches before the World Cup, he wouldn't be able to practice as much as a player should for a big tournament," Gavaskar said in an exclusive chat with Sports Tak.
Gill's reaction to becoming captain
Gill has now succeded Rohit as India's captain in both the Test and ODI formats. Reacting to his appointment as the Men in Blue's new skipper, Gill outlined that the 2027 ODI World Cup as their 'ultimate goal' and added that they will try to have a great one-day season before the tournament.
“It’s the biggest honour to be able to lead your country in the ODIs. To be able to lead a side that has done so well it’s immense pride for me. I hope I’ll be able to do great," Gill said in the video posted by the BCCI.
“We have about 20 ODIs before we play the World Cup in South Africa, which is obviously the ultimate goal. Everything that we play and all the players that we play, they are going to try their best to have a great season before we get to the World Cup. Hopefully, we will be ready before we go to South Africa and win the title," he added.
How many matches will India play on the tour?
Meanwhile, India will be touring Australia for a three-match ODI series and five-match T20I series. The tour will begin with the one-day assignment that will commence from October 19. This will definitely be a massive series especially for the duo of Rohit and Virat Kohli as they will be making their return to international cricket after months of absence.
India's squad for Australia ODIs: Shubman Gill (Captain), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (VC), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal.