Jay Shah confirms Rohit Sharma to captain India in the T20 World Cup 2024
Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Jay Shah has confirmed that Rohit Sharma will lead the country in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup that will be jointly hosted by the West Indies and the United States of America later this year. The board is of the belief that Rohit must be at the helm of the side as Hardik Pandya is still recovering from an ankle injury that he picked up against Bangladesh in Pune in the ODI World Cup in October last year.
Shah told the media on the sidelines of the ceremony to rename the SCA Stadium after former board secretary Niranjan Shah that "Rohit was captaining (in the past in other formats) and he came back for the Afghanistan series, which means we were going to let him continue forward.”
On being asked from Shah, indicating if the all-rounder gets injured during the course of the 2024 T20 World Cup, who will replace him as captain? If Hardik was injured in the 2023 ODI World Cup, who else can we give the captaincy?”
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Shah said, "In the third T20I against Afghanistan, India were 22/4, and the way he (Rohit Sharma) took the team to 212/4, we can't question much about him, right?" he added. "He (Rohit) has the ability; as I said, we won 10 games in the ODI World Cup. We didn't win the final, but it's part and parcel of the game. Whoever plays better wins.”
Earlier, during the function to rename the SCA Stadium, Shah said, “In 2023 (the final) at Ahmedabad, even though we did not win the World Cup after 10 straight wins, we won hearts. I want to promise you that in 2024 (the T20 World Cup) in Barbados (the venue for the final), under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy, ham Bharat ka jhanda gaadenge (we will hoist the Indian flag).”
After Shah made the announcement, Rohit, who was sitting there attending the event, was seen clapping.