Following the news that Virat Kohli has been replaced as India’s ODI captain, the world-class batsman can now put all his focus into skippering the Test team.
The 33-year-old has been instrumental in taking his country to the top of the world Test rankings and there looks to be plenty more to come from India’s talisman.
Big Call From BCCI
It has been a move that has sparked debate across the cricket world after the Indian cricket board (BCCI) took the decision to make Rohit Sharma the captain of both the country’s ODI and T20 teams. India, who are considered favourites to win the 2022 T20 World Cup in the cricket betting with Betfair, used to rely on Kohli as skipper across all formats but that changed this year. Many cricket betting tips would have expected India to go far at the 2021 T20 World Cup but India failed to reach the knockout stages of the tournament. Pakistan and New Zealand secured the top two place in the group and India were left packing their bags early from the major tournament.
There was expected to be some sort of fallout from the disappointing competition but BCCI president Sourav Ganguly was hoping Kohli would stay on in his role as captain of the T20 side. Kohli decided he’d had enough of the captaincy in the shortest format of the game and stepped down from the position. Rohit stepped up to fill the void and has now been issued the ODI captaincy also, as the BCCI look for a consistent leader in their white-ball teams. With a T20 World Cup to come in 2022 and the 2023 ODI World Cup to follow, the BCCI made the big call of giving Rohit the armband for both white-ball teams. Time will tell if it was the right one.
Test Team Can Benefit From Kohli Focus
Without the distractions of captaining the white-ball teams, Kohli can look to focus on his beloved Test cricket, in the format that helped him become a superstar of the game. Sitting at the top of the world rankings, India are the team to beat at present and will be formidable opponents for South Africa in their upcoming Test series. After missing out on the World Test Championship title last time around in the final against New Zealand, India will be looking to go one better this season.
After six games of the competition, India find themselves in third place in the standings behind frontrunners Sri Lanka and Pakistan. There is plenty of cricket still to go before the final two are decided, and perhaps Kohli’s reduced responsibilities will help him perform even better for the Test side.
Despite the disappointment of the T20 World Cup this year, it’s an exciting time for India across all formats of the game. Some big calls have been made on the captaincies and the work has already begun to make sure the decisions were the right ones.
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