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[Saba Sports News] Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has shared his thoughts on the leadership of Indian team’s skipper Rohit Sharma. Rohit is captaining India in the ICC ODI World Cup 2023 and has been performing exceptionally well, leading from the front both as a captain and a batter.
India commenced their World Cup 2023 campaign against Australia in Chennai. In this match, Rohit’s batting performance was not up to the mark, but he made effective bowling changes, which helped in restricting Australia to a score of below 200. India managed to win that game by six wickets.
In their second fixture against Afghanistan, he secured India’s second victory with a record-breaking century. In the last match against Pakistan, he managed the bowling changes well, and his 86-run knock in the second innings was sufficient to earn another points.
With his extraordinary leadership, Rohit earned praise from Ponting, who acknowledged that he is the perfect candidate to lead India to World Cup triumph due to his ability to absorb pressure in crucial moments.
“He’s very laid back, Rohit. Very laid back with everything he does. You can even see that by the way that he plays. He’s a pretty laconic sort of batsman as well, and that’s the way he is both on and off the field. We can’t sit back and say that the pressure won’t get to them at some stage, or it won’t affect them, because it will, just with the enormity of the tournament. But he’ll take it and cope with it as well as probably anyone,” Ponting was quoted as saying to the International Cricket Council.
Ponting also drew a comparison between former India captain Virat Kohli and Rohit. He opined that the Virat’s personality made his job as a skipper harder. Notably, Rohit took over the full-time captaincy from Virat in 2022.
“Someone like Virat, who is a bit more heart-on-the-sleeve, and probably listens to the fans and plays up with the fans a little bit more, someone with his personality would probably find it a bit harder. But I think Rohit will be fine with it. He’s a terrific bloke and has been a great player for a long time, and he’s done a great job as leader of India,” he concluded.