New Delhi:
The defeats suffered by the Indian cricket team against New Zealand at home and in Australia have shaken the selectors, the think tank led by head coach Gautam Gambhir and the BCCI to such an extent that such questions have arisen in front of them on which they will decide before the end of March. Can consider after 2025 Champions Trophy. According to sources, it has been learned that the selectors and Gambhir will soon meet to review the Australia tour. But the question of the future will always be prominent and this will include the immediate future also. The question will be that when will the reset button be activated for India’s ODI team? This aspect will force a conversation about the two biggest players, Virat Kohli and Test and ODI captain Rohit Sharma.
It would have been an insult to not have Kohli and Rohit in the ODI team before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He was among the top run-scorers in India’s run to the final in the 2023 ODI World Cup and played a key role in the T20 World Cup held in June last year, where he adopted an aggressive approach under the leadership of Rohit and coach Rahul Dravid. But since then both the batsmen have been seen struggling. Rohit also admitted that he made mistakes in captaincy in India’s 0-3 defeat to New Zealand. However, his long-standing batting failure in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and his age (Rohit is 37, Kohli is 36) have now brought him under the scanner.
The questions facing the decision-makers in Indian cricket will be, “Should they end this cycle with the same format that took them to the final of the 2023 ODI World Cup or should they take recent events into account and start from the Champions Trophy itself?” Want a fresh start?
When Gambhir took over as coach in August, before his first assignment for the ODI series in Sri Lanka, he was asked how much cricket he thought was left in Rohit and Kohli. Then he had said that he hoped that both the players are motivated for the Australia tour as well as the Champions Trophy. He even expressed hope that if they remain fit, they can play the 2027 ODI World Cup and stressed that both of them deserve a place in the team as they can still contribute to the win. However, in the 1-3 loss to Australia, Kohli and Rohit’s averages were 23.75 and 6.2 respectively. On this, Gambhir said that both of them will decide their future.
However, there will be fresh talks regarding their future in Test cricket, but Rohit and Kohli were part of the 2025 Champions Trophy plan in the roadmap prepared by the Ajit Agarkar-led selection committee last year. Both are among India’s top three players, which also includes Shubman Gill, who had a successful opening partnership with Rohit in the 2023 ODI World Cup. However, according to some in the Indian think tank, Yashasvi Jaiswal’s stellar success in Test and T20 cricket makes him a regular top-order batsman in ODIs as well. He believes that the uncapped Jaiswal provides a left-handed option in ODIs and can develop into an all-format player like Gill.
But even if Jaiswal is included in the ODI team as the third opener, then whose place will he take in the team? The opening partnership of Rohit-Gill has been very successful. Here, they have the best average of 72.16 among the opening pairs who have played at least 25 innings. Rohit has been struggling in Test cricket since September but he was the highest run-scorer for India in the ODI series against Sri Lanka in August. Then he played innings of 58, 64 and 35 runs on difficult pitches. At the same time, Kohli had scored 24, 14 and 20 runs, but ODI is his best format. Without him, India’s batting order looks inexperienced.
Instead of taking any hasty decision, the selectors and Gambhir can follow the path adopted before the 2024 T20 World Cup, when there was curiosity over whether Kohli would fit into the playing eleven or not. The decision makers including Rohit, Dravid and the selectors agreed that his experience in big tournaments was important. It is understood that he had talked to Kohli about this so that he could understand the style of India’s batting in T20 cricket.
BCCI can use a similar process of negotiation to decide the future of Kohli and Rohit in ODI and Test cricket. Also, it is important that Gambhir and Agarkar have a clear vision and are on the same page before sitting down with the players. Unless they feel that the motivation levels of Kohli and Rohit are wavering, dropping one of them ahead of the Champions Trophy would be a bold decision.
