Former South African cricket captain Graeme Smith has shared his thoughts on current Indian skipper Rohit Sharma’s recent performance. Smith believes that Sharma needs to take a break and refresh himself in order to come out of his current slump. According to Smith, once Sharma gets some runs under his belt, he should be able to regain his form.
Sharma’s performance has been under scrutiny after his lackluster showing in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia. Prior to that, he had a poor run in the 2022 T20 World Cup and entered the WTC final on the back of a string of poor performances in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023.
In an interview with the Times of India, Smith acknowledged that Sharma appears to be feeling the pressure of not scoring enough runs. As a former captain himself, Smith understands the challenges that come with leading a team and hopes that Sharma can bounce back soon.
“One of the biggest challenges of a captain is your own personal performance. The pressure of a leader never goes away. Rohit probably needs to just refresh. His own form hasn’t been probably at a level consistently. We look at the IPL over a number of years now and obviously the WTC final…he is having a bit of a rough patch and often that personal performance can just settle things down a little bit.
“No one is criticizing his captaincy or leadership style. It’s just obviously on the personal performance side, if he can get some really good scores behind him, it takes a lot of that pressure away,” the Proteas legend added.
Rohit’s performance was lackluster, scoring only 15 and 43, as India suffered a crushing 209-run defeat to Australia in the WTC final at The Oval.
After yet another disappointing loss in an ICC final, there has been an increasing demand to replace senior players in the Test team with fresh, young talent. Despite this, Smith cautions against hasty decisions and advocates for a gradual transition towards change.
“Whenever there’s a failure, it’s always the senior players that take the most heat. That’s always been a natural thing, if you go back (in years). I guess that’s up for the Indian selectors to decide in terms of when they start to integrate (youth). If you take out three, four or five of your highest-performing players for a long period of time, all that experience…talent can’t just replace that overnight.
“There needs to be a slow integration and a plan for these things. Those are also the players that got you to the WTC final. They’ve performed around the world for a consistent period of time to get India to the final. So, based on one game, to criticize them and throw them out, it’s very tough,” he concluded.
READ| Bangladesh record biggest Test victory of 21st century, crush Afghanistan by 546 runs in one-off Test
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
