Virat Kohli unlikely to remain ODI captain for long, says Aakash Chopra – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra believes that the idea of split captaincy for the Indian team, with Virat Kohli as the skipper for ODI and Test matches and Rohit Sharma as T20I captain may not work, adding that Kohli might not continue as the ODI captain for long.

The Delhi batsman aired his views on a video uploaded to his YouTube channel. “The division is between red ball and white ball,” said Chopra, adding that while split captaincy has worked in many cases, “but to take the red ball and one white ball and leave the other, I think that’s unlikely to work.”

File image of India all-formats captain Virat Kohli and limited-overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma. Sportzpics

Chopra stated that the chances of the Delhi batsman retaining his ODI captaincy are very low due to the similarity of the format with T20. Explaining that the players and style of playing in T20s and ODIs is almost the same, Chopra added that he believed Kohli might not remain the ODI captain for long.

Kohli announced that he was stepping down from the T20 captaincy after the T20 World Cup scheduled to be held in October-November this year. While no official announcement has been made by the Board of Cricket Control India (BCCI), it is widely expected that Rohit Sharma will assume captaincy of the T20 team, while Kohli continues as a batsman.

Chopra believes that Sharma is going to be made the captain but cautioned that whoever assumes the position should be given the captaincy in both the 2023 ODI World Cup and the 2022 T20 World Cup “because you want continuity in terms of just the direction.”

Kohli’s decision to quit the T20 captaincy to focus on his batting ahead of significant International Cricket Council (ICC) events has been attributed to reasons of workload management. However, speculation persists that India’s lack of trophies at ICC events such as the World Test Championship and the 2019 ODI World Cup was one of the reasons behind the Delhi batsman stepping down.