Around this time last year, after the disaster Down Under, almost everyone was howling for the heads of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Resetting the dressing-room culture became fashionable. Rohit and Kohli’s red-ball form was undeniably unpleasant on the eye and eventually they hung up their Test boots. It felt like Indian cricket was ready to move on from the two superstars. Shubman Gill, the ‘prince’, had his coronation before the England tour last summer. What a difference a few months can make!
India went to Australia for a three-match ODI series in October with Rohit stripped of his captaincy and Gill being chosen as his successor. People jumped the gun to say the series could be the former skipper’s swansong, as well as Kohli’s. Circa 2026, Rohit and Kohli are revelling in the second wind. The former returned from Australia bagging the Player of the Series award. The home ODIs against the Proteas were Kohli’s turn to wow the audience, which he did via back-to-back hundreds.
The three-match ODI series against New Zealand starts here on Sunday and two days before the game, as India trained at the BCA Stadium, Kohli was the first to arrive. In fact, he came almost two hours before the team’s scheduled practice session from 5.30 pm. Hunger is what drives the master. The day he will lose it, Kohli will call time on his glorious career. Make no mistake, that would be on his own terms and the same applies to Rohit. At the moment, making it to the 2027 World Cup looks like a formality for them. Both appear to be in the right mental space.
“A lot of players in our Blackcaps team look up to Rohit and Kohli,” Will Young, the New Zealand batsman, tipped his hat as he spoke to reporters. “When you play the game for such a long period, there will be ups and downs.”
Coming to Gill, the challenge for him in this series would be to find the right headspace. After missing the ODI series against South Africa due to a neck injury, he has returned to lead the side. But something happened in between. Only about a fortnight ago, he was the vice-captain of the T20I side – in charge of the Test and ODI teams and waiting to become the all-format captain. Now, Gill is not in the T20 World Cup squad. He might keep a stiff upper lip, but a World Cup snub could be hard to swallow for someone who only recently was tipped to be the next big thing in Indian cricket.
Mind, Gill is still pretty young, just 26 years of age. Putting the setback aside and setting the stands alight with his batting against the Kiwis will attest character. Having Rohit and Kohli in the dressing room could be a great help.
Rohit, in fact, has a personal story to tell in this regard. In 2011, after he was dropped from India’s World Cup squad, it felt like the flower wouldn’t bloom. Rohit was down but not out. In due course, he would grow enough to become an ODI legend. Gill has been a fantastic 50-over batsman in his own right, and an average of 56.36 attests that. But in terms of batsmanship, he is still a level or two below Rohit and Kohli. The youngster has the potential to reach the elite league, the territory of the greats, and he has a lot of time on his side. Gill should turn the stones thrown at him (on social media that gives poison a platform) into milestones.
Meanwhile, India had a full practice session on Friday. Only Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant, the two players who played the Vijay Hazare Trophy matches yesterday, were absent. They would join the squad later in the evening.
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