Rohit Sharma Is Sacked: In a major shift in Indian cricket, Rohit Sharma has been removed as the ODI captain of the national men’s cricket team and replaced by young Shubman Gill. The BCCI announced the touring party for this month’s tour of Australia for white-ball matches.
From October 19, India will take on Australia in a three-ODI series, which will be followed by a five-match T20I series.
The Ajit Agarkar-led selection panel revealed the squad on Saturday in Ahmedabad, where India, led by Shubman Gill, beat the West Indies convincingly in a Test match by an innings and 140 runs.
This concludes Rohit’s tenure as India’s skipper in any format, though he has been named in the ODI squad to face Australia, and so has Virat Kohli.
Rohit and Kohli, both of whom retired from Tests and T20Is, have not played international cricket since India’s ICC Champions Trophy triumph in March in Dubai.
Ajit Agarkar Explains Why Rohit Sharma Is Sacked As ODI Captain
Chief selector Ajit Agarkar explained that having three different captains in the three formats was not a feasible option. Hence, Rohit has been replaced by Gill as the ODI skipper. Gill, who got the Test captaincy earlier this year after Rohit retired, is the T20I vice-captain as well and now holds the ODI captaincy post.
Agarkar said, “It’s practically impossible to have three different captains for three formats. It is also tough for the coach to plan with three different captains. And it gives the next guy enough time to plan for whatever is coming.”
It has been reported that the decision to replace Rohit with Gill as the ODI skipper was unanimously taken by Agarkar, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia, and head coach Gautam Gambhir. Shreyas Iyer has been named Gill’s deputy.
Rohit Sharma was made the white-ball skipper in late 2021. While India endured an embarrassing loss in the T20 World Cup 2022 semi-final against England in Adelaide, Rohit led a shift in the landscape of how India batted in white-ball cricket.
Under Rohit, India reached the final of the 2023 World Cup at home but lost the final to Australia. The team then won back-to-back ICC trophies—the 2024 T20 World Cup and the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy—remaining unbeaten in both tournaments.
Rohit ends his India captaincy career as one of the only two Indian captains, with MS Dhoni being the first, to win two ICC trophies.
India ODI squad vs Australia:
Shubman Gill (C), Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer (vc), Virat Kohli, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh
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