Rohit Sharma took over as India Test captain last year after Virat Kohli stepped down following the South Africa tour. He would lead India in a two-match series against Sri Lanka at home, overseeing a 2-0 clean sweep in his first assignment as the full time Test captain.
Injuries prevented him from leading in the format any further in 2022 although India would play only three more Tests with Jasprit Bumrah and KL Rahul sharing captaincy duties.
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A fully fit Rohit though lead India across the four Tests of the Border Gavaskar Trophy that his team won 2-1 recently. While he has led the team extensively in white-ball cricket, especially in T20Is, the opener has just six Tests to his credit as captain.
He has led them to victories in four of those Tests while a draw and defeat each in the remaining two. Clearly, this isn’t a significant enough sample to judge his captaincy in red-ball cricket.
“I am still learning as a captain in every game that I have captained,” Rohit told reporters when asked to rate his captaincy. “I have captained a lot in T20 cricket, more than the other formats but Test cricket I am only six matches old in terms of captaincy. I am still learning and guys around me have played a lot of cricket and they are there to help.”
Rohit says his aim is to not try anything ‘weird’ and he tries to keep it simple.
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“Not that I have not played red-ball cricket in India, so I know how it works usually. So I try and think of all those things as a team. Recollect those thoughts and bring into the game. Whenever I lead the team, I try to keep it very simple. That’s always been my focus to not try and do something absolutely weird. Just keep it simple because it’s a longer version of the game and you need to keep patience,” he said.
That said, he’s enjoying this phase of his captaincy.
“You need to be able to make the right decision and for that you need to stay calm on the field. And those are the things I always think of when I am captaining the team. Still, like I said, I am learning about my captaincy. I am enjoying. Enjoying support from every player in the team and the support staff. I am quite enjoying this period of me leading the team,” Rohit said.
“There have been some challenges as well. I was challenged as a captain as well and when you are a playing a series like this, you are bound to make mistakes. I did make some mistakes but that’s how you learn and try and not repeat those mistakes again and again. I am still discovering new things about how I want to take the team forward,” he added.
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