Virat Kohli vs Rohit Sharma, Who should captain Indian Cricket team?

 Virat Kohli, who became the captain of the Indian Cricket team after the greatest captain of the Indian team, MS Dhoni retired. But since IPL 2020, Virat Kohli's captaincy has been questioned by many criticisms thrown by experts. Rohit Sharma who won the IPL 2020, is now seen as the perfect replacement of Virat Kohli as a captain. Many legends like Gautam Gambhir, Virendra Shewag, Kapil Dev have talked over this matter. And also some cricket analyst like Akash Chopra, Harsha Bhogle has given their opinion over this captaincy conflict. Here in this blog, we will try to give a detailed summary of what is going on, and provide you with some Statistical data to find out who is better. And also we will give an unbiased opinion on this matter. 

How this captaincy-conflict started?

Virat Kohli failed to win an IPL trophy after captaining RCB for over 8 years. On the other hand, Rohit Sharma won 5 IPL title as a captain of Mumbai Indians. Recently, Rohit Sharma won his 5th IPL title this year and Virat Kohli's RCB again disappointed their fans this year. 

    After becoming the Indian captain, Virat Kohli got a chance to play 2 ICC tournaments, Champions trophy 2017, and ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. But Virat Kohli wasn't able to win any of them. In Champions Trophy 2017, we reached the Final but got beaten by our Arch-Rivals Pakistan. And in ICC Cricket World cup 2019, we could only reach the Semifinals as we got beaten by New Zealand. After Successive failure in IPLs and ICC tournament, Indian people think it's time to remove Virat Kohli as a captain and bring Rohit as the new captain. 

Virat Kohli's records as Captain in international cricket.

As people are mostly focused on removing Virat Kohli from limited-overs crickets, let us go through his records in ODIs first:-

• Virat Kohli has captained team India on 92 occasions, where India won 63 of the matches and lost 26 of them. His winning percentage is 70.55%. Comparing with MS Dhoni, who captained team India in 200 matches, and won 110 of them making his winning percentage (59.52%) much less than Kohli's. 
• Virat Kohli holds the record of 2nd highest individual runs as a captain (5320) after MS Dhoni (6641).
• Virat Kohli has the highest average batting as captain in ODI that is 73.88.
• Under Virat Kohli's captaincy, India defeated Australia their home. Also, India defeated England, West Indies, and other major teams in the ODI series.

Now talking about the T20 international, Here are the biggest accolades of Virat's captaincy in T20I:-

• Virat Kohli has captained team India on 40 occasions, where India won 24 of the matches and lost 12 of them. His winning percentage is 65.78%. Comparing with MS Dhoni, who captained team India in 41 matches, and won 28 of them making his winning percentage (59.28%) less than Kohli's. 
• Virat Kohli became the first captain to win the T20 series in SENA countries – South Africa, England, New Zealand, and Australia. 
• Under Virat's captaincy, team India won 11 consecutive T20I matches, which is the longest undefeated streak in India's T20 history.

Now let's talk about his Test Captaincy records:-

• Virat Kohli is the most successful Test captain for the Indian Cricket team as he won 33 test matches out of 55 matches played with a winning % of 60.00.
• Virat Kohli holds the record of 6 double hundred as a captain which is most by any captain.
• Virat Kohli is the only captain to score double hundred in 4 consecutive series as a captain.

This was a short summary of what Virat Kohli has accomplished as an Indian captain. Not only has he won many matches as a captain but he has scored a huge amount of runs after becoming the captain. Just the missing of one big trophy is what raising the question about his capability as the Indian captain.

Rohit Sharma's records as Captain in international cricket.

Rohit Sharma is the vice-captain of the Indian cricket team and has led the Indian team in the absence of Virat Kohli. 

• Rohit Sharma has captained the Indian team in 19 T20I matches with 15 wins having a winning % of 78.94%. 
• Rohit Sharma has captained team India in 10 ODI and won 8 of them with a winning % of 80.00%.
• Rohit Sharma has won an Asian cup captaining team India. 

Cricketing legend and expert's take on this matter.

"Virat Kohli is not a bad captain but Rohit Sharma is better. There is a vast difference between the quality of captaincy"

                                                                                      - Gautam Gambhir.

"A captain is only as good as his team. When Virat Kohli captains India, he is able to deliver the results. He wins matches – ODIs, T20Is Tests. But when he captains RCB, his team is not able to perform"

                                                                                  - Virendra Shewag.

"But I have a question, that if Rohit was given the RCB team, which is there with Kohli, will he have won two, three or four out of the five titles MI have won?"

                                                                                               - Aakaash Chopra.

 

"In our culture it is not going to happen that way. In one company you make two CEOs? No. If Kohli is going to play T20s and he is good enough, let him be there. Even though I would like to see other people coming out. But it's difficult. It may bring more differences between the players who look up to the captain"

                                                                                                     - Kapil Dev. 

 Unbiased Opinion- 

    It is not the perfect time to change the Indian captain. If we go through the stats, Virat Kohli has done a good job as a captain. Nothing against Rohit Sharma, but suddenly giving him the captaincy before the ICC T20 world cup will benefit the Indian team. Rather than thinking of changing the captain, we should focus more on finding the most balanced playing XI before going into the world cup. 

    Captaining in IPL is very different from captaining in International cricket. Mumbai Indians has a far better team than RCB, and that has played a major role in Virat's discouraging captaincy in IPL. 

    We should look to bring a 6th bowler who can bowl when needed and provide a breakthrough. Having both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma is what the Indian team needs right now. We ought to have both of them in the ground. And if we need to think about changing the captain, it should only happen if Virat Kohli fails in the upcoming T20 world cup.