(Cricket news) Parthiv Patel, JioCinema IPL expert, on why players flourished under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy: I think the most important thing is that he supports his players. The best examples of this are Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah. Bumrah came into the MI set up in 2014 and by 2015, his performance wasn’t great. They even pondered sending him back after half the season. But Rohit Sharma believed in his ability and from 2016 onwards, his performance has been excellent. Same with Hardik Pandya. He came in 2015 and became popular. His 2016 season wasn’t great but MI stuck with him and Pandya became the player he is today.
Zaheer Khan, JioCinema IPL expert, on some of Rohit’s decisions that impressed him: You can plan for a game in advance but nobody knows how proceedings will unfold in the middle. He acts according to situations and takes decisions, and many times they are different from what may have been planned in the run-up to the game. I think that’s his strength. In the IPL, taking on-the-spot decisions is one of the biggest challenges for captains and he did that well for MI.
Parthiv Patel, JioCinema IPL expert, on Rohit’s impactful captaincy: The best example is the two IPLs MI won by just one run each. That would not have been possible if you don’t have a captain who can stay calm on the ground. When there’s a tense match, sometimes wrong decisions or blunders are made. But the hallmark of Rohit Sharma’s captaincy is that in the last 10 years, you don’t remember that he made a blunder. Even Dhoni has made blunders like giving Pawan Negi an over, but if you see Rohit, you’ll never see a blunder. Keeping the process simple is something that Dhoni advises but we see Rohit practice that in games.
RP Singh, JioCinema IPL expert, on whether IPL will see captains like Rohit and MS Dhoni again: Both these captains have had so much success, five trophies each. If they were in the same team, they could have won eight or nine trophies together possibly. In the coming years, I don’t see anybody that special. Maybe, Shubman Gill can be viewed as a new-generation captain. But I don’t see anyone coming up that can match up to their thought process.
