According to R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s unexpected retirement decisions left the best leadership space in the India’s Test team and he thinks that Jasprit Bumrah is a well deserving person to lead the team.
“I didn’t have an idea that both [Rohit and Kohli] would retire together,” Ashwin said on his Youtube show ‘Ash Ki Baat’. “This will be a testing time for Indian cricket, and I’ll say this is truly now the beginning of the Gautam Gambhir era.”
“The team that will tour England will be a completely new team, a transformed team where Bumrah will probably be the senior-most player. He is obviously one of the captaincy options. I think he deserves the captaincy, but the selectors will take a decision based on his physical capacity.”
“Their retirements will definitely create a leadership vacuum. You can’t buy experience, especially on tours like this. Virat’s energy and Rohit’s composure will be missed.”
Shubman Gill is considered the frontrunner to benefit Rohit while Bumrah performed his role of vice-captain until the tour of Australia during this year. Rohit didn’t perform in the fifth test match in Sydney, then Bumrah performed his role as a captain, also he led the team to victory as a stand-in captain in Perth Test.
The decision of giving captaincy role to Bumrah depends on his workload management, whether he can perform the role properly or not, due to his recent injury concerns. He also faced issues with his back during the Sydney Test and he was also not able to play in the home series against England, also he missed the Champions Trophy and the start of IPL 2025.
Talking about the resignation timing of Rohit and Kholi, Ashwin said he understands that both players could give some more time to Test cricket.
“There will be a sense of fulfilment, but I honestly feely Kohli definitely had one-two years of Test cricket left in him.”
“Rohit, I felt would at least go on till the England Test series, because there’s a leadership vacuum in the team.” Ashwin further said.
“Tests has been the finest [format for India] in the last 10-12 years, but just for the sake of leadership, Rohit should’ve played till the England series, and if he’d performed, he could’ve carried on and given some more leadership.”
“My favourite piece of batsman ship of Rohit for India was when he played in England [2021],” he said. “When he and KL Rahul opened, we were 2-1 ahead because of Rohit. The opening partnership was gun, strong.”
“Between 2018-19 to 2022-23 was Rohit’s best phase as a Test batter. Even the Covid series in Australia which we won, his batting was top notch. Then also he was looking very good, didn’t get big runs but batting was top notch.”
Ashwin said that during his Test captaincy debut in 2014, the twin centuries by Virat Kohli in Adelaide was his best performance, in his view.
“Kohli the Test cricketer was box office, he was brand ambassador of Test cricket in many ways,” Ashwin said. “Some of his best knocks haven’t always resulted in wins, but that’s taking nothing away from those knocks. The twin hundreds in Adelaide in 2014 – that knock not finishing in a win is a shame. The 153 in Jo’burg, the pink-ball Test when we were all out for 36, the 74 he made in the first innings – some of the knocks are incredible.”
