Team India entered the T20 World Cup final for the third time in the tournament’s history on Thursday when the side defeated England by 68 runs in Guyana. The Rohit Sharma-led side is undefeated in the edition, and so are South Africa; however, India have enjoyed a relatively more dominant outing, clinching strong wins over sides like Australia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and England.
Under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy, India will be playing in their third ICC final; the side had earlier faced defeats to Australia in the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup finals last year. However, India have looked significantly stronger than other sides in the ongoing competition, and former India skipper Sourav Ganguly heaped praise on Rohit for how he led the side.
Recalling some of the major developments in Rohit’s career over the past few months, Ganguly said that life has “come a full circle” for the India skipper. In December last year, Hardik Pandya succeeded Rohit Sharma as the captain of the Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians, which caused significant controversy.
The decision was met with fan anger, and MI endured a horrific outing in the season, finishing at the bottom of the table in the 2024 season. Ganguly referred to the moment and lauded Rohit for the comeback.
“I’m very happy for Rohit Sharma. Life comes full circle. Six months ago, he was not even the captain of Mumbai Indians, and the same man is now leading India to a World Cup final, unbeaten,” Ganguly told PTI.
The former BCCI president was in-charge of the job when Rohit took over as India’s captain, succeeding Virat Kohli in the role.
Reluctant to become captain
Ganguly also revealed that Rohit was reluctant to take up the captaincy role when Kohli had stepped down. He stated it took a lot of convincing for the 36-year-old to take up the leadership.
“He has played two World Cup finals where he has gone into the final unbeaten. That speaks of his captaincy and leadership quality, and I’m not surprised because he became captain when I was the BCCI president and when Virat didn’t want to captain India anymore.
“It took a lot of time to make him captain because he was not ready to captain. It took a lot of pushing from all of us to make him captain and I’m very happy to see the progress of Indian cricket under him.”
Hasibur Rahaman is a passionate sports journalist. He covers everything from cricket to field hockey, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis of sporting events, both within India and on the international stage.
