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Rohit Sharma has now won T20 World Cup both as captain and as a player. (AP Photo)
Rohit Sharma has now won the T20 World Cup as a player and as captain, the first ever Indian to do so.
When Rohit Sharma took over the India captaincy from Virat Kohli, it came with plenty of expectations. The expectations to win ICC titles. Not that Kohli wasn’t an able leader. But a major hole in his captaincy CV was the absence of a global title.
With Rohit proving his ability to win titles in IPL and then the Asia Cup of 2018 with Kohli absent, it seemed a no-brainer to give him the reins.
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However, Rohit’s story threatened to become a mirror image of his predecessor. He too came close to ending India’s ICC title drought, twice in a year through the World Test Championship and ODI World Cup. The story was the same: India left licking their wounds after losing both the title clashes.
After the semi-final exit at the 2022 T20 World Cup, it was assumed that the road for Rohit and Kohli has come to an end as far as the shortest format is concerned. In And so it seemed with the duo not playing any T20I for over a year.
In a surprising turn of events, BCCI brought back both Rohit and Kohli for a home T20I series against Afghanistan in January this year. And then later, it was announced that Rohit will be leading the team at the 2024 T20 World Cup.
With Hardik Pandya the de facto captain in Rohit’s absence, the announcement surely raised eyebrows.
Fast forward to June 29, Rohit justified the call having captained his team to their third ever T20 World Cup final and then to a second ever title as they defeated South Africa in a thrilling final at the Kensington Oval.
India became the first ever team in T20 World Cup history to win the tournament unbeaten, their first such title triumph in 17 years. The win in the final was Rohit’s 50th as T20I captain and he thus became the first ever to do so.
Rohit, who was part of the India squad that won the World T20 in 2007, thus fulfilled a long cherished dream of winning a world title as captain.
His first attempt at doing so was at the 2022 T20 World Cup when India went as far as the semi-finals. The second attempt was a few months later in the final of the World Test Championship and the third five months later in the ODI World Cup finale but both ended in a heartbreak.
The win in Barbados on Saturday must have healed those wounds.
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