"Expected More From Him...": Sunil Gavaskar's Scathing Take On Rohit Sharma's Captaincy

Sunil Gavaskar raised questions over Rohit Sharma's captaincy and said that he has not done justice to his reputation as the joint-most successful captain in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Legendary Indian cricket team batter Sunil Gavaskar was not pleased with Rohit Sharma's captaincy and said that he expected more from him. Since Rohit replaced Kohli as the India skipper, the national team has failed to qualify for the T20 World Cup final and has also lost to Australia in the World Test Championship (WTC) final. In a recent interaction, Gavaskar raised questions over Rohit's captaincy and said that he has not done justice to his reputation as the joint-most successful captain in the Indian Premier League (IPL) where he has won five titles with Mumbai Indians.

“I expected more from him (Rohit). In India it is different, but when you do well overseas that is really the test. That is where he has been a little disappointing. Even in the T20 format, with all the experience of the IPL, hundreds of matches as captain, with a mix of best IPL players not being able to get to the finals has been disappointing,” Gavaskar said at the Indian Express Idea Exchange.

Gavaskar also said that more accountability needs to be placed over Rohit and head coach Rahul Dravid when it comes to high-profile losses like that in the WTC final.

“They should be asking questions, ‘Why did you field first?' Okay, it was explained at the toss that it was overcast and all. The question after that should be, ‘You didn't know about Travis Head's weakness against the short ball?' Why was the bouncer employed only when he had scored 80 runs? You know, the moment Head came in to bat, in the commentary box, we had Ricky Ponting saying, ‘Bounce him, bounce him.' Everyone knew about it but we didn't try,” he added.