ICC T20 World Cup: Rohit Sharma, India’s happy-go-plucky leader

Days after the heartbreak in the ODI World Cup final in November, Rohit Sharma met the selectors. Rohit’s future as a captain in the T20 format wasn’t clear. Should India do a reset with youngsters and a future-proof captain was the swirling question. His IPL franchise, Mumbai Indians, had already made that move.

A selector cues up the conversation from that meeting. “When we met Rohit for the first time after the 50-over World Cup final loss, we were convinced he should be leading the team at the T20 World Cup as well. The reason is, when he sat down, he didn’t want to shake up anything just because we lost. He told us, “Sir, yes, we lost the final, but we also defeated each and every opponent we played in the World Cup including Australia in the league stage. So let’s not write off these players.”

It became clear, at least to the selectors, that India can’t deny itself of a leader just because of the format. With Rohit keen to remain in the hot seat, there was no question of wholesale changes.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by ICC (@icc)

The IPL that followed would really show the world, and perhaps even to Rohit himself, how much he is adored by the fans. There was a sense of betrayal about the treatment meted out to him, which they harshly took out on Hardik Pandya, booing him across the country. Once at the Wankhede stadium, he would gently gesture with his hands to suggest to the crowd to stop booing, but such interactions don’t come naturally to him.

Advertisement

A crossover moment with the fans would occur in this T20 World Cup. As he finished shaking hands with the last Pakistani squad member after the win, Rohit Sharma was heading towards his dugout when he jerked his head up to glance at a section of the crowd. Instinctively, he raised his clenched right fist in the air to trigger huge cheers. The move reminiscent of a mass leader or from a Rajnikanth movie was a tad out of character for Rohit. He is typically a players’ captain, absolutely at ease orchestrating them like a chilled-out big brother who also knows when to be hard on them. But his relationship with the crowd hasn’t necessarily been a two-way affair in the past. They cottoned on to his natural, nonchalant way of leading with his characteristic Mumbai-slang grounded humour and his stripping down of gravitas from an India all-format captain. He is now finally beginning to shrug off his inherent shyness – “I am very very poor at socialising; I feel awkward” – and respond to them. That raised-fist vignette was a little-big moment in that regard.

Everything came a bit late in his cricketing career, despite the talent he always possessed: the refurbished Test career as an opener, the India captaincy, this kind of public adulation. He knows it’s his proverbial last lap, but has been working overtime in the last year especially to leave his imprint on Indian cricket history.

And with this T20 World-Cup triumph, he joins Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni in the pantheon of successful leaders in the public imagination; throw in his bucketful of IPL titles and that compliment doesn’t look out of place.

Perhaps it was the experience of being dropped early on, especially from the 2011 World Cup that cut his heart. Rohit Sharma always mentions how one of the key things as a captain is to confront the players and tell them exactly honestly what is required of them and why a decision is taken.

Advertisement

with this T20 World-Cup triumph, he joins Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni in the pantheon of successful leaders in the public imagination. (AP/PTI) with this T20 World-Cup triumph, he joins Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni in the pantheon of successful leaders in the public imagination. (AP/PTI)

It was something he first picked up from Ricky Ponting during the early years of IPL, he told this newspaper. “He was very open about how one should go about captaining the team and what are the major requirements. And that is one thing I learnt from him: one should be able to confront players, be any players or your team. If you are dropping someone, a captain should be able to talk to them on their face. This is the reason you have been left out. He told me that I will get more respect from the player if you can go talk to them straighter. People respect you more, that is one thing I learnt from him,” Rohit had said. He would follow that trait over the years; like informing Yuzvendra Chahal about the reasons for non-selection for the 2023 ODI World Cup.

As much as the viral videos of him have spread about his humorous unfiltered ‘garden mey ghoomney wale log …’ or using “World-Cup selection is on his mind” as a banter to tease Dinesh Karthik in the IPL, it’s also the tough talking that his leadership will be known for. It’s served at times with unintentional humour like that garden jibe; it’s forgotten that it was about urging the youngsters to keep the body language better and show more intensity on the field. Such is his personality that neither the players themselves or the fans watching it get offended at the tone; instead, they realise why he says what he says.

Or him stopping play to tell Sarfaraz Khan to don a helmet before standing at silly-point – the humorous takeaway for the fans was the casually cool ‘hero nahi banney-ka’; the takeaway for the player is that here is a big brother who cares for me.

Or once telling Kuldeep Yadav in a limited-over game that he would not get more overs if he continued to bowl an insipid flat trajectory at a quickish pace. “Aisa daalega toh mein over nahi doonga,” he would say and Kuldeep responded positively.

Advertisement

Rohit had a shy smile when that incident was brought up. “Yes, probably we must have discussed something and things he wanted to do. Honestly, I would like the individual to take the call. Ball is in his hand, he has to do the job and not me. As a captain it’s my duty also, as my neck is on the line. There is a certain responsibility on me also. I will come when I feel that things have gone thoda upar abhi (gone out of hand). I have to get the bowler under control. You need to give that freedom but at the same time if you see that freedom is being over used or taken for granted then I come in. I will have a chat.”

The years of IPL captaincy has no doubt helped him become a straight talker.

“Yes, you have to be okay to have a hard chat with the players after the field also at times. That is I think what the captaincy job is. It’s not just on the field or to walk with a paper for the toss.”

Such is his personality that neither the players themselves or the fans watching it get offended at the tone; instead, they realise why he says what he says. (AP Photo) Such is his personality that neither the players themselves or the fans watching it get offended at the tone; instead, they realise why he says what he says. (AP Photo)

But even here he has an interesting way of doing things off the field. The coaxing, the tough talk, the encouraging chats, and motivation is usually done on field during training sessions in between games. Or a quiet word here and there. He lets the players be in the evenings at the hotel.

Advertisement

“Captaincy is on the field. Once inside the hotel I’m not going to people ‘s room and talking to them. They have their own privacy, they have their own time. Unless I feel, I really need to talk to someone, about this guy’s role, about the game. Then I will make that effort to get in touch otherwise, whatever conversation I feel I like to do, it is at the ground. I do feel that sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone and do those hard talks. It is part of this job,” Rohit says. “Similarly, I have told them not to get too involved with social media, but I am not going to their rooms and checking their phones.”

Leading by example

It’s by example that he tries to inspire them. Not just turning out as an aggressive all-out attacking opener to set the template for the rest to follow, but even in these little off-field things. He wiped out the social media apps from his phone several months back. “Not that the players also have to do it, but I thought I should … If we have to do any commercial post then the wife handles it. These are distractions, they all are on the phone the whole day. It’s a waste of time and energy. The new generation is more on reel, Instagram, social media, they all are into it. I have decided not to have it on my phone because if it’s there I will watch it.”

MS Dhoni had to deal with legends and also seniors with leadership ambitions in his early years as a captain. During Virat Kohli’s years, there was no doubt about who was the lead star: himself, but there were other big players including Rohit, Cheteshwar Pujara, R Ashwin, Ajinkya Rahane on the rise, particularly early in Kohli’s reign. Unlike them, Rohit has largely had a team of youngsters to work with. And seniors were either without pronounced captaincy ambitions or like Kohli, who has been there, done that.

But it also presented him with the need to teach the youngsters how to conduct themselves on the field. During the five-Test long series against England at the start of the year, it was apparent that he was expending much of his emotional energy on those aspects, moulding the youngsters into professional team players. That ‘garden mey ghoomne waaley’ was one such cry, of telling them they can’t relax and wander about. That they were doing that tells much about the inexperienced youngsters. Many of them had spent years from childhood so focussed on developing their own games that got them an early shot in the national team, but without sufficient first-class experience of growing in a team environment. Rohit found that he had to extend himself into becoming a big brother in all aspects.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by ICC (@icc)

There was a moment by the nets at Dharamshala during that England series when he would confide in a couple of journalists, “bhai, kaun sikhayega inko all this otherwise? We seniors are in our last lap; if we go without passing on these little but most important stuff, then there is no chance of them learning. Yes, I get

very tired as my focus isn’t just on strategising now, but also all these, but it’s a privilege to be in a position to do what I can do for them.”

Advertisement

Not many would doubt Rohit’s skills as a strategising captain. It’s better than Dhoni, the Test captain. It wasn’t a surprise when Dhoni quit that role first

after a few stressful and unsuccessful years. He was more instinctive on the field, incredibly ahead of the fast-moving white-ball game, but Test cricket needs much more total involvement than just being spontaneous for 20 overs. It requires a special temperament ready for extensive preparation off the field and importantly a passionate commitment towards the format in the first place that perhaps Dhoni didn’t care for much. Virat Kohli didn’t quit but he has admitted how he had to fake his intensity at times.

Rohit has straddled both spectrums with his unique laidback-yet-passionately-clued-in character. It’s not known in all this light-hearted masti he can indulge, he is one of the last cricket tragics in the fraternity. Growing up, he did nothing but watch, think, and play cricket. Unlike many in the fraternity, he would actively watch games. “If there was no live cricket, my uncles and I would be watching highlights of matches, old and current, all day long. I soaked so much unconsciously about cricket, its tactics, its rhythm then; I love this game,” he would tell this newspaper just before the ODI World Cup.

With his laidback character, he didn’t have to ferociously push himself internally as much as Kohli, leading to the over-boil. At the end of the day, despite all the stresses, pulls and tugs of leading and teaching a young team, he says he can “sleep anywhere, anytime, any position” and that “I love sleeping!”.

The fans have warmed up to this unique package. And aided by his close ones, he has now begun to reciprocate. It has begun to peep out in other avenues. Like the self-referencing in the recent advertisements that market his famous forgetfulness and the style of speaking where he apparently uses ‘voh’ (that) without exactly saying what he means. Incidentally, Virat Kohli first advertised that to the world in an interview about the endearing things about Rohit. The development towards mythifying one’s own traits has also coincided with his ever-increasing popularity with the fan base. And it wouldn’t have happened without the recent successes as a captain.

Advertisement

If a captain like him, who expends tactical and emotional energy on field as much as him, can still chill, joke, or hit the sack like a baby and sleep, it’s not a surprise that the team under him is most awake and alert to the calls of greatness. His legacy would be how he taught the young team to perform intensely and yet have a laugh. That emotional balance will be his greatest achievement; the rest – leading from the front, instilling all-out aggression, being selfless for the team cause by batting the way he does are all mere details.

The relationship with fans still doesn’t come as naturally and easily to him, but he was sure about how to address the generation gap in the team.

“In our time when we entered, we didn’t have the guts to sit with the big stars. We were scared, standing near the toilet. This generation is different. All these young guys now play with us in the IPL. They have exposure. For us Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, Laxman, Sehwag, we got their exposure much later in life. We never used to play with them, there was no IPL. They hardly used to play Ranji then because of international commitment. Now this generation is different. I believe to go into the flow. I have tried to blend in.”

Blending in hasn’t looked more natural and uber-cool.