‘He doesn’t react well in critical situations’ – Shoaib Akhtar criticises Rohit Sharma’s captaincy skills

Pakistan’s former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar believes Rohit Sharma is not the ideal candidate for the captaincy of the Indian cricket team. Akhtar recently opined that India’s current all-format captain Rohit Sharma easily gets panicky in critical conditions, while appreciating the opening batsmen for his batting skills. 

Shoaib Akhtar discussed that India has a high possibility of winning the World Cup considering that playing at home once again after the ODI World Cup 2011. He again emphasised the failure of Indian media considering they always pressurise the players and expect them to only win. 

Shoaib Akhtar talked about Rohit Sharma’s captaincy skills and said, “Rohit Sharma is a great guy. However, he does panic at times during captaincy. I may sound a bit harsh here, but I don’t think he should have taken up India’s captaincy. He is even more talented than Virat Kohli. He is a classical batter. But was he made for captaincy? Does he react well in critical situations? These are the questions that keep coming to my mind.” 

Shoaib Akhtar on Rohit Sharma’s panicky impressions in critical conditions 

“You should also be questioning it. But there’s no doubt that he has the ability to win this World Cup. He has a home advantage and a good team,” he added. 

“Virat Kohli used to be overly aggressive, while Rohit Sharma panics a lot. I would blame the Indian media for this. An environment is built in which India just cannot afford to lose at any cost. Why can’t they lose?” said Akhtar. 

Recently, Rohit Sharma, discussed India missing both the warm-up matches due to rain on Captain’s Day ahead of the commencement of the ODI World Cup 2023, he said, “We were happy to get those days off, and looking at the heat and stuff like that, you know, like we’ve been talking about it. We’ve been playing a lot of cricket off late. We played the Asia Cup, we played about four games there, and then we played three games against Australia. That gives us an understanding of where everyone’s at and what we need to do as a team as well.”