Rohit Sharma led the Mumbai Indians to history during the 2020 IPL as the Mumbai Indians went on to win their 5th IPL Championship. Virat Kohli who led the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) during the IPL had a better campaign in 2020 than the one in 2019 but did not make it to the IPL finals.
Kohli or Sharma – who is the better T20 Captain?
Indian cricket fans have had this discussion for the last few years after the conclusion of every IPL season. Some fans believe that given Rohit Sharma’s successful track record with the Mumbai Indians in the T20 format, he should be given the chance to captain team India in the T20 format.
Virat Kohli has captained RCB for the last 8 seasons but has failed to lead RCB to even one IPL tournament final. Given the track record of Kohli and Sharma in the IPL, fans are keen to see what Rohit Sharma can do with team India in the T20 format.
Virat Kohli is not going to step away from the T20 captaincy voluntarily as he is a proud man and a strong leader. Kohli not only believes that he is the best man to lead India in all three formats of the game but also believes he has the backing of the selectors.
This would make it very difficult for Rohit Sharma to captain India on a permanent basis.
Cricket Pundits Share Their Views On Sharma or Kohli?
Former England captain Michael Vaughn was full of praise for Rohit Sharma and said that he believes Rohit Sharma is the right man to lead India in T20 cricket.
Vaughn said that although he had tremendous respect for Virat Kohli, he believes that it would help Kohli to step away from captaining the T20 side and lessen some of his responsibilities that would in turn help his batting and his contribution to team India.
Gautam Gambhir has also backed Rohit Sharma to be the next T20 captain for India. Gambhir and Kohli never did get along, so it does not come as a surprise that Gambhir is pushing for Rohit Sharma to takeover.
Aakash Chopra, the former opening batsmen for India shared a different perspective. Chopra said that one must ask the question as to whether Rohit Sharma could have captained the RCB squad and had the same results in the IPL. If Virat Kohli was put in charge of the Mumbai Indians, would he have had a better run in the IPL?
Those are valid points raised by Aakash Chopra and hard to answer because we will never know the answer to that question.
Kohli Will Captain In Australia
Virat Kohli will captain India in their three match ODI and three match T20 series in Australia. India go in as the betting underdogs in the ODI series as the bookies are favouring the home side and with good reason. Australia have 8/11 betting odds against India’s 11/10 betting odds for the first ODI that takes place at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) on Nov 27.
Rohit Sharma has been left out of the ODI and T20 sides as he is still recovering from an injury. BCCI President Sourav Ganguly stated that Sharma was only 70 percent fit and would most likely join the test squad. Virat Kohli will only captain India for the first test and will they fly back to India to be with his wife for the birth of his first child.
It will be interesting to see if the selectors hand over the test captaincy to Rohit Sharma or whether they will give it to KL Rahul who has been named the vice-captain for the ODI and T20 series in Australia.
