Rohit Sharma has been struggling with his form across formats for some time now. Aside from few glimpses that gave hopes of him returning to his best, the ongoing year has proved to be a challenging one for Rohit.
A sparkling Test hundred on a challenging Nagpur pitch earlier this year against Australia did prove that the India captain still has a lot to offer but apart from that, it has been an ordinary 2023 for someone regarded as one of the finest batters to have played the game.
In IPL 2023, while leading Mumbai Indians, he scored 332 runs at a poor average of 20.75 showing his struggles aren’t limited to one format. During the WTC final, he got the starts in both the innings but failed to build on them.
Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith thinks that Rohit would benefit from hitting the refresh button and that the weight of captaincy could also be hampering his individual performances.
“One of the biggest challenges of a captain is your own personal performance. The pressure of a leader never goes away. Rohit probably needs to just refresh. His own form hasn’t probably been at a level consistently. We look at the IPL over a number of years now and obviously the WTC final…he is having a bit of a rough patch and often that personal performance can just settle things down a little bit”, Smith told The Times of India.
Smith says while there’s no question over his captaincy, the heat that Rohit has been facing could easily vanish should he manage to put up a string of impressive scores against his name.
“No one is criticising his captaincy or leadership style. It’s just obviously on the personal performance side, if he can get some really good scores behind him, it takes a lot of that pressure away,” Smith said.
India’s next Test assignment is against West Indies during which they will play in a two-match series.
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