The legendary India National Cricket Team all-rounder Kapil Dev has backed the skipper Rohit Sharma to come out of the lean patch and once again win matches for the team with his stellar performances.
Kapil Dev also sent a reminder to Rohit Sharma’s critics, saying that the India skipper won the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 just a few months back.
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Rohit Sharma’s poor form is a huge concern
Rohit has lost four back-to-back matches as the Indian Test skipper. Under his leadership, the team faced an absolutely humiliating 0-3 whitewash against New Zealand at home, which was the lowest point in the history of Indian cricket.
Rohit then missed the subsequent match against Australia, which was played in Perth, and Jasprit Bumrah led India to an epic 295-run win.
However, as Rohit returned to captain the team, India faced an embarrassing 10-wicket loss against the Aussies in Adelaide as the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 got levelled 1-1.
The captaincy is not the only concern for Rohit Sharma as his personal form with the bat has been terrible. In the last 6 Test matches, he has failed miserably, and his performances have had a direct impact on India.
In the Test series against Bangladesh, he registered scores of 6, 5, 23, and 8 and then followed it up with scores of 2, 52, 0, 8, 18, and 11 in the New Zealand series. Also, in the Adelaide Test, he scored 3 and 6 runs across two innings.
He doesn’t have to prove himself – Kapil Dev
The World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev, meanwhile, blasted the critics of Rohit Sharma and said that the latter doesn’t have to prove himself as he has already done that over the years.
Kapil added that he would never doubt the credentials of Rohit Sharma, the captain, as he has been highly successful and backed him to bounce back strongly.
“He doesn’t have to prove himself. He has done this for many, many years, so let’s not doubt somebody. I won’t doubt him. I hope his form comes back, that’s important,” Kapil said during the launch of the Vishwa Samudra Open, a PGTI event set to begin at the Delhi Golf Club on Tuesday.
“With one or two performances, if you doubt someone’s captaincy, I mean, just six months back when he won the T20 World Cup, you wouldn’t have asked me this question. Let it go, knowing his ability and talent, he will come back. They will come back strongly,” he added.
I think it is too early to talk about that – Kapil Dev on Jasprit Bumrah as captain
Kapil Dev also rejected the idea of Jasprit Bumrah being fully ready to take over the captaincy from Rohit Sharma. He said that such a decision can’t be made after just a few failures of Rohit. Kapil Dev stated:
“I think it is too early to talk about that. With one performance, you can’t say he is the best, and with one bad performance, you can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.
“Let a player play a lot of cricket, take on a lot of captaincy. Ups and downs will come, and then you judge a person by how he reacts in difficult times, not in good times. In good times, we don’t have to judge. When he is down and out…”