Rohit Sharma may be remembered as an all-time great in ODI cricket whenever he hangs up his boots but for now, he knows he will need to perform to hold onto his spot in the Indian team which is why he abandoned his aggressive batting style in the recently-concluded ODI series in Australia, former India batter Mohammad Kaif has said. The 38-year-old had been stripped of captaincy before the series and there were questions around his place in the team considering he only plays the ODI format now. However, he responded by top-scoring for India and winning the player of the series award despite the team losing the series 2-1.
“I think it is about captaincy,” Kaif said on his Youtube channel about Rohit switching back to accumalating runs in ODI cricket instead of being the hyper-attacking opener that he had become while he was captain of the squad. “Now he is playing solely as a batter. He will be cautious. He is not a captain or a leader. He is not pressured by setting the example of leading from the front by hitting a six on the first ball. He has played a lot of balls,” Kaif said on his YouTube channel.
Rohit finished three consecutive calendar years with strike rates over 100 in 2022, 2023 and 2024, which were the years in which he was captain of the Indian team. In the 2025 Champions Trophy, in which Rohit led the Indian to victory in his last act as ODI captain, he scored 180 runs in five matches at a strike rate of exactly 100.
However, Rohit’s strike rate was 85.59 in the ODI series against Australia, in which he scored 202 runs in three matches. “Rohit knows people will judge him by the number of runs he scores. He won’t go for a 20-ball 40-run cameo. He knows he has to play big knocks. He will take fewer risks and take his innings deep. It is now clear that he won’t throw away his wicket,” Kaif concluded.
