CHENNAI: Since the 2019 ODI World Cup, India have played 24 matches, winning 11 and losing 12. Their win-loss percentage — for teams that have played over ten matches — is the second-lowest among the top ten ranked teams, with only West Indies below them. This is why, when Rohit Sharma, the newly-appointed ODI skipper ahead of his first assignment on Saturday, said that he just has to pick up from where Virat Kohli has left the team, both he and the team management would be aware that they will have to do a lot more than just that.
“I mean, when Virat was captaining, I was the vice-captain, so we pretty much went about the team in similar fashion. I just have to take it from where he left. There is nothing that I need to come in and change something drastically,” said the 34-year-old in the pre-series press conference.
Although, as Rohit said, he might not bring in drastic changes, there are quite a few areas which he and head coach, Rahul Dravid, would have to work on, such as their approach with the bat in the first powerplay, the dearth of wickets in middle-overs, the all-rounder dilemma, and upping the run rate between overs 10-40. And there are already signs of slight changes, forced and intended, that one might see in the three-match series.
With the squad hit with Covid and Mayank Agarwal joining the camp late, Rohit confirmed that Ishan Kishan would be opening the batting on Sunday. One of the strong suits of India over the years was the top three consistently scoring big hundreds. It hasn’t been the case in the last couple of years, especially with Rohit playing only 12 of the 24 matches. With the inclusion of the young aggressors in Kishan — who had a memorable ODI debut against Sri Lanka last year, smashing a 42-ball 59 while batting at three — and Mayank, India might be looking to make the most of the powerplay while also putting an end to the constant shuffling of KL Rahul in the batting line-up.
Rohit also backed Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal — the wrist-spin duo who would be making a comeback of sorts after a brief period where India went back to finger spinners — to do well, especially the former, who went downhill since the 2019 World Cup. “It is certainly on my mind to get them back together, Kuldeep specially..., we want to get him in slowly. We just do not want him to rush into things, and it cannot do good for either the team and also for him,” he added.
Whenever there is a change in leadership, there will be some changes in the team’s approach as they try out new things. And Rohit would be no different. While India did experiment in the past, trying to be proactive, it would be fair to say that one bad result has seen Kohli go back to their old template. Rohit is known for his captaincy with Mumbai Indians, but how he will react to changes based on results as the full-time India white-ball skipper is yet to be seen.
On April 2, 2011, minutes after winning the ODI World Cup in Mumbai, MS Dhoni said, “we can close the chapter with this World cup right now because we need to build up a team again.” And, he had four years to do that. Although there is a settled core group of players at his disposal, Rohit has just 18 months to figure out the team combinations before the next global event. And he will have to start putting the pieces together one at a time on Sunday.
