Credit of Rohit Sharma's success goes to MS Dhoni: Gautam Gambhir

Gautam Gambhir, on Rohit Sharma’s 33rd birthday, lauded him as the best white-ball player in the world. The latter is certainly at the peak of his career over the last few years especially after he started opening for India in the limited-overs format. No batsman even comes close to him in terms of number of runs scored since 2013 as an opener in the ODIs and today, Rohit is India’s vice-captain in the 50-over and 20-over format.

And Gambhir has credited MS Dhoni for Rohit’s success at the international level. He feels that no captain must have backed a player so much and the team is reaping its fruits now. Rohit Sharma’s case was a frustrating one for many experts for a long time. His place in the team was questioned almost every time but Dhoni who was the skipper then kept on backing him and as they say, the rest is history.

I don’t think any player any player has got such support, says Gautam Gambhir

The former India opener, in an interaction with Sports Tak, is of the opinion that even though the selectors pick or a drop a certain cricketer, a player needs his captain’s backing and that is what Rohit Sharma got from MS Dhoni. He also claimed that no player must have got such support ever from his captain while lauding the veteran wicketkeeper-batsman for his job.

“Where Rohit Sharma is today, it is because of MS Dhoni. You can talk about the selection committee and team management, but if you do not have the backing from your captain than it is all useless. Everything is in the hands of the captain. How MS Dhoni had backed Rohit Sharma over a period of time, I do not think any player has been given such support,” Gautam Gambhir said.

Despite an extremely slow start to his career, Rohit Sharma has amassed 9115 and 2773 in 224 ODIs and 108 T20Is respectively. Though he has played only 32 Tests so far, it has only started for him in the format having started to open the innings only last year.