Legendary Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar has joined the list of experts who have raised questions over Rohit Sharma and his captaincy after India’s loss in the T20 World Cup semi-final against England.
Akhtar said that Rohit always wanted to lead the team but was just not prepared to take up the leadership role.
The Rawalpindi Express stated that captaincy comes in with many responsibilities where one can’t point fingers at anyone. He also reckoned that Rohit might not continue the role as the Mumbaikar is pretty close to his retirement in the shortest format.
“Was he ready for the captaincy? I still haven’t received an answer to this question. We all knew that he wanted to be the skipper. But this is not an easy task to do. You have to live and breathe captaincy and also have to sacrifice family life. That is why Rohit should be spending more time with the team which will help him in building the team as well. He just looked a bit depressed and off,” said Akhtar while speaking on Zee News.
“With captaincy comes responsibility. If the team performs, you get the credit but when you face criticism, you don’t point fingers at anyone. And Rohit Sharma’s continuation, I won’t be able to see that. Because he is close to his retirement in T20 format,” he added.
Akhtar further spoke about Virat Kohli’s decision to bid farewell to captaincy, mentioning the Delhi-born cricketer took too much time to realise that his job was gone.
“Kohli took so much time just to realise that captaincy is now gone and that he needs to come of that phase. Yet he took breaks from the game and then somehow, luckily, Pakistan were troubled by Kohli. Now he is in a good space. I think for Rohit Sharma, it has been too much to ask from him,” Akhtar explained.
