‘Difficult decision to replace Rohit Sharma’: Chief selector Ajit Agarkar backs Shubman Gill as India's new ODI captain

Ahmedabad: Rohit Sharma has many white-ball records in his name. On Saturday, he also earned the dubious distinction of being the only Indian captain to lose his job after leading India to a major trophy victory in the form of the Champions Trophy in March in the UAE.

Chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar announced the squads for the ODI and T20 tour to Australia after India’s comprehensive innings and 140-run win over West Indies in Ahmedabad in the first Test and announced Shubman Gill as the next ODI skipper and Shreyas Iyer as his deputy.


The selectors clearly want Gill to have enough exposure as leader of the ODI team before the next World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia in October-November 2027.

In that vision for 2027, it was difficult to see if the player of the match in Ahmedabad, Indian Test vice-captain, Ravindra Jadeja, also features as he has not been included for the ODI leg.

Jadeja has already retired from the T20 format, and Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have retired from Tests and T20Is.

“Obviously at some stage you got to start looking at where the next World Cup is,” Agarkar stressed.


Admitting that it was a difficult call to remove Rohit as captain, Agarkar stated that Rohit was informed about the decision but refused to divulge the details of the conversation, stating, “That’s a conversation between Rohit and me.”

"Even if he did not win the Champions Trophy as captain, it would have been a difficult decision because of how good he's been for India. But you've got to sometimes look at what's coming forward, where you stand as a team, and eventually look at what's in the best interest of the team, whether it's now or maybe six months later. Those are the calls that I suppose we are put in place to make here.”

The former India all-rounder explained that because there are so few One-day games being played, the selectors feel that calls related to captaincy changes needed to be made early.

“It’s practically impossible to have three different captains for three formats in terms of planning. You’ve got to start planning. You play the ODI format the least. We have to try and give the other guy enough chance to get that confidence of leading another format.”

Agarkar did not say it in as many words but mentioned that the team picked was only for the Australia tour, and Rohit and Kohli’s inclusion or Jadeja’s exclusion offers no guarantees that they would be picked or omitted in the side for the 2027 World Cup.

“As far as the 27 World Cup is concerned, I don't think we need to talk about it today.”

He, however, said in a no-nonsense manner that both Kohli and Rohit would be expected to play some form of domestic cricket.

“That is the only way you can remain sharp, by playing cricket. We have been clear over the last two years that if you are available, you are expected to play in domestic cricket.”

About Jadeja’s exclusion, Agarkar explained that the conditions in Australia would not warrant the need for two left-arm spinners.

“It was not possible to take two left-arm spinners to Australia. (Axar Patel is there in the ODI squad too). He's clearly in the scheme of things with how good he is, but there will be some competition for places. He was there in the Champions Trophy squad because we took those extra spinners with the conditions there.

At the moment, we could only carry one and get some balance in the team with Washy and Kuldeep there as well. And I don't think we're going to need more than that in Australia.”

ODI squad for Australia tour: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (vc), Axar Patel, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal.

T20I squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill (vc), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Sanju Samson (wk), Rinku Singh, Washington Sundar.


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