Test skipper Shubman Gill has replaced Rohit Sharma as India’s new ODI captain, and will lead the side in the three-match series in Australia starting October 19. Rohit along with batting stalwart Virat Kohli, have been named in the squad with Shreyas Iyer as the vice-captain.
Having retired from Tests and T20Is, both Rohit and Kohli were last seen in action during India’s successful campaign in the ICC Champions Trophy in March, this year. After the three ODIs in Australia, their next opportunities to play for India are in the three-ODI home series against South Africa in November-December and against New Zealand in January.
The selection committee, led by former India fast bowler Ajit Agarkar, convened on Saturday in Ahmedabad, shortly after India’s innings-and-140-run victory over the West Indies in the first Test.
The captaincy change was driven by the selectors’ intent to give Gill ample time to establish himself ahead of the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia. The decision was taken collectively by Agarkar in consultation with head coach Gautam Gambhir and BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia.
“Obviously at some stage you got to start looking at where the next World Cup is,” Agarkar said at a press conference in Ahmedabad.
“It’s [ODIs] also a format which is played the least now, so you don’t get that many games to actually give the next guy, or if there is going to be another guy, that much time to prepare himself or plan. We are two years away still, might look like a long time, but we don’t quite know how many one-day games we might play. Closer to the World Cup we might end up playing a little bit more than what we have, but the last one-day game we played was what, March 8 or 9 in Champions Trophy, and the next one we play is in October 19, so it is a bit of a challenge with one-day cricket at the moment … It is very difficult to have three different captains for three formats, in terms of not just selectors but more importantly even for the coach, to plan with three different people is never easy,” he explained.
With the change in guard in ODIs, the 26-year-old Gill is now officially in the leadership role across all three formats, as Test and ODI captain and vice-captain of the T20I team.
Agarkar also brushed aside questions on his workload saying, “Hopefully not, he is still quite young.”
“We hope there is no burnout. It is true there is a lot of cricket coming thick and fast over the next few months in particular. We will try and manage it as best as we can, but you also want to, like I said, give the guy enough time to try and prepare going into that next World Cup, which is 24 months away, but may not be that many games, so we want to give him the best possible chance.”
The 38-year-old Rohit was India’s full-time ODI captain from December 2021. Overall, he led India in 56 ODIs, winning 42, losing 12, with one tie and another no-result. He led India to the 2018 Asia Cup title as stand-in captain, and then to the 2023 Asia Cup title as full-time captain. Under his leadership, India made the final of the 2023 ODI World Cup. His tenure culminated in India winning the ICC Champions Trophy, earlier this year.
Earlier in May, Gill took over the Test captaincy following Rohit’s retirement ahead of the England tour that ended in a 2-2 draw. In his maiden series as Test captain, Gill led from the front with the bat, amassing 754 runs at an average of 75.40 to emerge the highest run-scorer.