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The Men in Blue are currently taking on England in the first Test of the five-match Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy in England. The Indian team have stepped out for the first time without the likes of their senior veterans including Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin, who announced retirement during the course of last few months.
Although, R Ashwin’s retirement came midway through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) series, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s decision came in a shocking move, midway through the IPL 2025. On May 7, Rohit Sharma announced his Test retirement, in just a span of six days, the cricketing world was handed another setback as Virat Kohli pulled down curtains to his elaborated Test career.
Rohit Sharma was reluctant to lead Team India in Tests after Virat Kohli: Sourav Ganguly
Although, it has been more than a month that the two have stepped away from India whites, recently, former India cricketer and BCCI President, Sourav Ganguly opened up on Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s Test captaincy stint. In an exclusive conversation with PTI CEO and Editor-in-Chief Vijay Joshi, when inquired on Rohit Sharma taking over the captaincy reins from Virat Kohli, he responded, “We always wanted Virat to be captain, but he did not want to continue. And that's what it was.”
“And then obviously Rohit came in, he was captaining Mumbai Indians. He was captaining 50-over T20. We needed a Test captain because Virat Kohli was Test captain by then and he finished in South Africa. I always believed that Rohit was a very good captain. So obviously the request from the board, I went to him that you know you should captain in test matches. He was reluctant because of workload,” Ganguly continued.
Watch video of Sourav Ganguly opening up on Rohit Sharma’s Test captaincy takeover:
The former India captain revealed, “But then I remember having a conversation with him that, you don't want to finish your career without captaining Indian Test matches. So that struck a chord with him, and then he took a couple of days and then he agreed.” ganguly went on to hail Rohit for his amicable nature, stating, “He's a very adjustable person, very friendly person, if you have conversations with him, he'll agree and accept and do things. And why wouldn't anybody want to be in this Test game?”
Notably, Rohit Sharma ended his Test career, captaining India in 24 matches, winning 12 and losing nine. However, three matches ended in a draw. He also took India to the World Test Championship (WTC) Final in 2023. He finally bid adieu to the longest format, having played 67 Tests, where he amassed 4301 runs at an average of 40.58, with 18 half-centuries and 12 hundreds.
