Days earlier, Rohit’s captaincy period in Indian cricket had formally drawn to an in depth. His management had already pale from the Indian Premier League (IPL) panorama earlier than the 2024 season. He had retired from T20 internationals minutes after lifting the T20 World Cup in Barbados. And in early 2025, he known as time on his illustrious Test profession, leaving simply the ODIs, the format that had outlined his evolution as one in all India’s greats.
On October 4, chief selector Ajit Agarkar confirmed what many had anticipated – Shubman Gill would succeed Rohit as India’s ODI captain. The announcement, symbolising a generational shift, introduced the curtain down on one of the profitable and transformative tenures in India’s white-ball historical past.
Leader of many hues
Rohit captained India for the primary time in 2017 as a stand-in chief in each limited-overs codecs. He had already established himself as a serial winner within the IPL, main Mumbai Indians to a few titles. That expertise had toughened him, sharpened his cricketing instincts, and earned him the popularity of a tactician with each imaginative and prescient and persistence.
When Virat Kohli opted out of the 2018 Asia Cup, the selectors, in session with coach Ravi Shastri, had little hesitation in handing Rohit the duty. What adopted within the United Arab Emirates that September was a defining chapter.
Rohit was on the helm when India gained the Asia Cup in 2018. | Photo Credit: AFP
Rohit marshalled his crew with readability and composure, recalibrated the batting order and bowling plans after Hardik Pandya’s harm, and impressed India to one more continental triumph. It wasn’t simply the crown that mattered – it was the tactic. His calmness below strain, willingness to again gamers past typical logic, and the knack for setting attacking fields with out being reckless – all turned hallmarks of the Rohit Sharma blueprint.
However, not like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rohit was by no means the silent, inscrutable determine in cost. He was expressive – typically gesturing to fielders, incessantly in dialog with bowlers, and sometimes animated when a plan went awry. Yet, beneath the outside that always trended on social media, was an astute cricketing thoughts that operated with near-mathematical precision.
He was vocal, sure, however not overbearing. He listened. Bowlers below him typically spoke about how Rohit’s best energy lay in not forcing his opinion – in letting the bowler personal the plan even when it went towards the textbook.
In a crew stuffed with superstars and massive egos, Rohit’s humility and humour acted as equalisers. The dressing room, as soon as fragmented by individualism, started to mirror the captain’s temperament – targeted, conscious, however all the time light-hearted sufficient to soak up strain.
The massive reset
When Rohit and Rahul Dravid took over the reins in 2022, Indian cricket was at a crossroads. The crew was robust, however the strategies had begun to creak. The semifinal defeat within the 2022 T20 World Cup to England in Adelaide was a wake-up name, and Rohit confronted it head-on.
He candidly admitted that India was on the verge of being outdated in T20 cricket. More importantly, he didn’t conceal behind statistics or excuses. He initiated a reboot – each in mindset and crew construction.
The mixture of Rohit and Dravid ended India’s drought in ICC occasions in 2024. | Photo Credit: ANI
The method to batting modified from accumulation to acceleration. The top-order started to take dangers, and the middle-order was constructed for flexibility slightly than function rigidity. He didn’t simply preach “fearless cricket” – he embodied it, strolling out to open the innings with the licence to go arduous from ball one.
If India’s 2022-23 season was about discovering that rhythm, 2023-24 was about mastering it. The T20 World Cup triumph in June 2024 that ended an 11-year ICC trophy drought was each vindication and farewell. Rohit’s fearless 39-ball 57 within the semifinal towards England – performed with abandon and intent – turned symbolic of the philosophy he had championed.
ODI Maestro
Months earlier, the identical method had ended up haunting him. Having gotten India off to a flier within the 2023 World Cup last towards Australia on house soil, a rush of blood resulted in Rohit shedding his wicket and India the plot. Nevertheless, if T20s showcased Rohit’s reformist zeal, ODIs mirrored the mastery.
Few Indian cricketers have understood the tempo of the 50-over format fairly like him. From his three double-centuries to his uncanny potential to learn match conditions, Rohit’s ODI legacy was already safe lengthy earlier than he wore the captain’s armband.
As a frontrunner, he added a layer of tactical brilliance. He rotated his bowlers neatly, preserved strike bowlers for key overs, and infrequently set unorthodox fields, significantly towards left-handers. His use of spinners within the center overs, a throwback to India’s Nineties method, wrested again management in a format more and more skewed in direction of batters.
Under him, India reached the 2023 World Cup summit conflict with a near-flawless run – solely to falter on the final step in Ahmedabad. Yet, even that heartbreak was marked by admiration for the model of cricket his aspect had performed – attacking, environment friendly and team-first. In defeat, Rohit’s mature management stood out. There was no deflection, no dramatics – solely acknowledgment of the opponent’s superiority and quiet pleasure in his crew’s consistency.
Beyond ways and trophies, what distinguished Rohit was his empathy. He was a captain who observed when a teenager was nervous, cracked a joke to lighten the huddle earlier than an enormous chase and publicly backed out-of-form gamers. For these like Suryakumar Yadav, Gill, Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Siraj, Rohit wasn’t only a captain – he was a mentor who made them consider that they belonged.
Agent of change
Rohit’s emotional intelligence typically went under-appreciated, overshadowed by his easy six-hitting or his meme-worthy press conferences. But inside the ecosystem of Indian cricket, it was transformative.
From 2017 to 2025, Rohit led India in 118 limited-overs internationals, successful over three-fourths of these. He turned the one Indian skipper after Dhoni to carry two ICC trophies.
Yet, his legacy can’t be confined to win-loss ratios. He modified how India approached white-ball cricket. He proved that management neither wanted to be loud to be efficient nor dictatorial to be decisive. He reminded a cricket-mad nation that technique and soul might co-exist.
As the baton passes to Gill, the journey comes full circle for Rohit – from an keen understudy to the inheritor obvious, from the ‘Hitman’ to the headman, and at last to the elder statesman who left the crew richer in id and perception.
He may not have captained for so long as Kohli or amassed as many titles as Dhoni, however in redefining India’s limited-overs ethos, Rohit ensured his title can be etched alongside.
And as he stood on that awards stage – leaner, composed and smiling knowingly – it wasn’t simply an honour he obtained. It was an acknowledgement that his legacy, like his lofted pull over mid-wicket, will keep alive in India’s collective cricketing reminiscence for an extended, very long time.
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