“Rohit probably needs to just refresh” - Graeme Smith reflects on Indian captain’s poor form

Former South African captain Graeme Smith believes that current Indian skipper Rohit Sharma needs to refresh himself as he attempts to come out of a rut. According to Smith, once Rohit gets some runs under his belt, he should be fine.

The Indian captain’s performance has come under the scanner after he failed to deliver in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia. Earlier, he had a poor run in the 2022 T20 World Cup as well and headed into the WTC final on the back of poor form in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023.

In an interview with Times of India, Smith admitted that Rohit seems to be feeling the pressure of lack of runs.

Sharing a piece of advice for the under-fire cricketer, he said:

“One of the biggest challenges of a captain is your own personal performance. The pressure of a leader never goes away. Rohit probably needs to just refresh. His own form hasn’t been probably at a level consistently. We look at the IPL over a number of years now and obviously the WTC final…he is having a bit of a rough patch and often that personal performance can just settle things down a little bit.

“No one is criticizing his captaincy or leadership style. It’s just obviously on the personal performance side, if he can get some really good scores behind him, it takes a lot of that pressure away,” the Proteas legend added.

Rohit was dismissed for 15 and 43 as India went down to Australia by 209 runs in the WTC final at The Oval.

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“There needs to be a slow integration” - Smith against sudden overhaul of India’s Test team

Following India’s defeat in yet another ICC final, calls have been growing for seniors in the Test team to be shown the door and young legs to be brought in.

However, Smith is against a knee-jerk reaction and believes that change must happen gradually.

The 42-year-old commented:

“Whenever there’s a failure, it’s always the senior players that take the most heat. That’s always been a natural thing, if you go back (in years). I guess that’s up for the Indian selectors to decide in terms of when they start to integrate (youth). If you take out three, four or five of your highest-performing players for a long period of time, all that experience…talent can’t just replace that overnight.

“There needs to be a slow integration and a plan for these things. Those are also the players that got you to the WTC final. They’ve performed around the world for a consistent period of time to get India to the final. So, based on one game, to criticize them and throw them out, it’s very tough,” he concluded.

Apart from Rohit, Cheteshwar Pujara (14 & 27) and Virat Kohli (14 & 49) also failed to deliver the goods in the WTC final.