He's still a leader of the team: India's newly-appointed limited-overs captain Rohit Sharma opines on Virat Kohli
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Rohit Sharma, who is now India's ODI and T20I captain, lavished huge praise on Virat Kohli and said 'he will still be a leader of the team'.
BCCI named Rohit Sharma as the new Team India captain in ODIs on Wednesday (December 8). Thus, Rohit is now India's limited-overs captain whereas Virat Kohli remains in-charge of the Test side. Recently, Rohit lavished huge praise on King Kohli, who he believes will remain a leader in the team.
During a recent interaction, when he wasn't officially announced as the ODI captain, Hitman spoke highly of Virat and how the team will continue to benefit having the former captain in the limited-overs format.
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"A batter of Kohli's quality is always needed in the squad. To have an average of 50 plus in the T20 format, it is crazy and unreal. Obviously, with the experience... he has batted and bailed India out so many times from difficult situations.
"The quality and his kind of batsmanship is required. Plus, he is still a leader of the team. All those things put together, you don’t want to miss out. You don’t want to ignore that kind of stuff. His presence is very important to the team," said Rohit on the show 'Backstage with Boria', organised by veteran sports journalist Boria Majumdar
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Under Kohli, India dominated the bilateral series -- both in T20Is and ODIs. In the shortest format, India won bilaterals in SENA countries, beat West Indies in the Caribbean island, Sri Lanka in their own backyard and also thrashed oppositions at home. In ODIs, the 33-year-old led India to the 2017 Champions Trophy final and 2019 ODI World Cup semi-finals and also won bilateral series in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Nonetheless, India couldn't end their eight-year-long ICC-title drought.
Rohit will now like to make the most of Kohli's presence as a batter and take Indian cricket to greater heights in the shorter formats.