Australian legend Ricky Ponting believes a ‘relaxed’ Rohit Sharma is the ideal captain to lead India to their third ODI World Cup title, the second on home soil after the 2011 triumph. With three convincing wins under their belt, India are off to a perfect start of their World Cup campaign. India defeated Australia by six wickets in their tournament opener, before recording emphatic wins of eight and seven wickets over Afghanistan and Pakistan to top the points table.
“He is very relaxed, Rohit. Very relaxed in everything he does. You can even see that in the way he plays. He is also quite a laconic kind of batsman, and he is like that both on and off the field.” Ponting told the ICC on Tuesday.
Rohit took over the captaincy from Virat Kohli in both white-ball formats in December 2021.
And Ponting believes Rohit’s character is a perfect fit for the Indian job, allowing Kohli to focus on his batting.
“Someone like Virat, who has a bit more heart for the cause and probably listens to the fans a bit more and plays with the fans, someone with his personality would probably find it a bit more difficult,” they said. said the former World Cup-winning Australia skipper.
“But I think Rohit will be fine with it. He’s a great guy and has been a great player for a long time, and he’s done a great job leading India.” The Men In Blue last won the World Cup when the tournament was jointly hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in 2011.
The extra pressure of performing in front of home fans will certainly be present, but Ponting believes that Rohit is the best man to handle it.
“We can’t sit back and say that the pressure won’t get to them (India) at some point, or it won’t affect them, because it will, just given the sheer scale of the tournament.
“But he (Rohit) will accept it and deal with it as well as probably anyone,” he said.
Ponting said with all the bases covered, India are the team to beat in the ongoing showpiece event.
“I’ve said from the beginning that I think they will be the team to beat. They have a very talented team,” he said.
“They have covered all the bases with their fast bowling, their spin and their batting of the highest order. They will be extremely difficult to beat. But we will see how they hold up under extreme pressure like Well,” Ponting concluded.
India will play Bangladesh in Pune on Thursday.
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