Rohit Sharma seems to have ticked all the right box in his first full-time assignment as India’s ODI captain. The Asian giants, under their new limited-overs captain, sealed an unbeatable 2-0 lead against a visiting West Indies side in a 3-match series in Ahmedabad.
After chasing down 177 in the first ODI with relative ease, India successfully defended a below-par total of 237 against the West Indies in the 2nd ODI at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Wednesday. Suryakumar Yadav was the only shining light of the batting unit, but Rohit marshalled his bowlers wonderfully well to skittle out a powerful West Indies batting unit for just 193 in 46 overs in the 2nd ODI.
Former West Indies fast bowler Ian Bishop said he is impressed with Rohit’s captaincy, adding that the skipper’s insistence on setting attacking fields until the final delivery of the match was quite impressive.
India had only 237 runs in the bank to play with but Rohit never took his foot off the gas as he kept rotating his bowlers and took his time to get the field placements right. His decision to keep a slip fielder for new batters, including West Indies’s stand-in captain Nicholas Pooran, worked wonders as he induced the mistakes from the Wet Indies batters on Wednesday.
Prasidh Krishna responded to his captain’s call well as the 25-year-old pacer picked up 4 wickets and gave away just 12 runs in 9 overs. Shardul Thakur picked up 2 wickets while the rest of the 4 India bowlers picked up a wicket each. Rohit used the services of his 6th bowler, Deepak Hooda to good effect in the 2nd ODI.
“There are a couple of key things as a captain – when you make a bowling change, your bowlers have to respond to it and make you look good. You can make these changes and you can bowl rubbish,” Bishop told Star Sports when he was asked to rate Rohit’s captaincy in the series so far.
“The other thing to add to Rohit Sharma is the attacking fielders that he kept in place from the start until the back-end of the innings was very good to see,” he added.
India extended their winning streak against the West Indies in ODIs to 11 series as the Asian giants have put behind the South Africa tour disappointment to begin the road to the 2023 World Cup.
