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Cricket Players'I thought if I can't get the best out of him, then I am a failure': Ravi Shastri explains India star's meteoric rise
A proven performer in limited-overs cricket, Ravi Shastri revealed that he was fiercely determined to help an India star batter excel in Tests too, and as it turned out, both he and the batter were able to achieve the target.
Long before Ravi Shastri became the head coach of the Indian team, he served as its director around 2014. Back then, Indian cricket was still in search of their next big stars. Virat Kohli was on his way to greatness, but who after him? As the years passed, the likes of Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane and Shikhar Dhawan developed to be the mega-stars of India's batting, while Mohammed Shami redefined himself and Jasprit Bumrah's emergence paved a whole new way for India cricket.
On the batting front, there was a little work still left to be done. A proven batter in limited-overs cricket, Rohit was made the Test opener in 2019 against South Africa. The elegant right-hander made the most of it, becoming the first-ever batsman to score two centuries on debut as a Test opener. After scoring 176 in the first innings, Rohit made 127 in the second to etch his name into the record books. He came the sixth Indian to score a hundred in both innings of a Test match.
Cut to the present day and Rohit has got over 3000 runs and eight Test hundreds under his belt with the highest score of 212. He recently also took over the mantle of Test vice-captaincy from Ajinkya Rahane, showing that the 34-year-old opener's career is on the upswing across all three formats.
Recalling Rohit's promotion at the top in whites, former India head coach Ravi Shastri has said that he had no doubts about his decision to hand the opener's job to the Mumbai Indians skipper. "It was very clear in my mind that I wanted to do it. I thought if I can't get the best out of him as a batsman then I am a failure as a coach because there is too much talent there," said Shastri while speaking on the Star Sports show Bold & Brave: The Shastri Way.
Shastri also weighed in on the captaincy styles of Rohit and Virat Kohli, comparing their approach to Indian greats Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. "You look at the two (Kohli and Rohit) and compare their captaincy, it reminds me of Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. Virat more like Kapil, while Rohit is more like Gavaskar," he further said.
Earlier this month, Rohit was named as India's full-time white-ball captain, completing the BCCI's leadership overhaul in both ODIs and T20Is. He is likely to begin his captaincy tenure in ODIs in January when the side takes on South Africa in a three-match away series.
The star opener, however, is not a part of the ongoing Test series against South Africa, having suffered a hamstring injury while practicing in the nets. This is the second successive Test series that Rohit will miss, after being rested for the recently-concluded two-Test series against New Zealand at home. The BCCI has included India A veteran Priyank Panchal as his replacement for the Proteas red-ball challenge.
