Irfan Pathan draws captaincy comparisons between Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni

It has been smooth sailing for newly appointed India captain across all three formats Rohit Sharma. The Men in Blue are yet to suffer a defeat under his leadership and continue to march on from strength to strength.

Having been promoted as white-ball captain last year, Rohit Sharma was also given the reins of the Test side following Virat Kohli’s sudden decision to relinquish captaincy. The Test series against Sri Lanka is his first assignment and India secured a comfortable victory by a margin of an innings and 222 runs in Mohali and are also on course for another massive win in Bengaluru.

Rohit’s captaincy has drawn plaudits from almost all quarters. His bowling changes, field placements and team selection have been received favourably by the majority of the fans and cricket experts. Former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan has also lavished praise on Rohit’s leadership and compared his calm personality to that of the legendary Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

“We talk about Dhoni being Mr Cool but Rohit is cool as a cucumber,” said the left-armer.

Irfan Pathan also shed light on how the Indian team has two big stars who managed to turn their careers around after rough spells on the sidelines. While Rohit Sharma has always been a top-tier talent, it took him a long time to sort his feet out in international cricket. The 2011 World Cup snub was particularly impactful on Rohit who hasn’t had to look back since changing his position to open the innings in the 2013 Champions Trophy.

It has also been the case for star all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja who was once regarded as a ‘bits and pieces’ cricketer by Sanjay Manjrekar. Jadeja has elevated his game across all formats since the 2017 Champions Trophy as well as his batting performances in England in 2018.

“Every player goes through that phase in his career when he isn’t able to perform and only left with disappointment. The current team has two such players: Jadeja and Rohit. Jadeja hasn’t looked back since the 2017 Champions Trophy final… and Rohit has changed a lot since the 2011 World Cup snub. There used to be a lot of talk about his talent. But he himself would say that he was much more than just talent,” said Pathan while speaking on Star Sports.

“He worked hard on his skill-set and the best opportunity came in the 2013 Champions Trophy. He was given the role of opening the innings and that took Rohit’s career to another level. His performance was a notch above and that improved his consistency as well.”